Florida Shooting Debunks Gun Hysteria at GWU; Shooter Intent on Killing Blacks Forced From Black University
Florida Shooting Challenges Gun Hysteria Narrative at GWU
WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 28, 2023) – The fact that a crazed and well armed White Nazi gunman, intent on killing Black people, was forced to leave the target-rich environment of a historically Black University by an armed police officer – before going to an unprotected store where he was easily able to kill three African Americans – debunks the hysteria which greeted GWU’s plan to arm a small number of its campus police.
When George Washington University first announced that it would arm a small number of its police officers who were already licensed to carry firearms – only 2 have been armed so far – the response by small groups of students and a few faculty bordered on hysteria, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf of GWU’s law school.
For example, the students insisted that giving even a small number of police permission to carry a handgun would put at risk of being brutalized virtually everyone in the greater D.C. area except for rich white people living in the suburbs.
More specifically they argued that “GW is arming GWPD, a private police force that CONTINUES to assault and harm students . . . This is an attack on black and brown students . . . This is an attack on the poor and the working class. This is an attack on DC residents, who will almost certainly be brutalized by an armed GWPD.”
Meanwhile, a few faculty members claimed that there was no evidence having armed personnel would reduce the risk of anyone being shot if a crazed gunman came to the GWU campus, as so many have to other colleges and universities.
Sunday’s events are dramatic proof of just how wrong they are, says Banzhaf. The presence of just one police officer stopped a murderous gunman out hunting for Blacks to leave one full of African Americans, and go instead to a store with a racial mix of customers where he had to pick and choose his targets.
The decision by this university – like most other universities – not to leave their campus police helpless against intruders likely to be armed, probably saved the lives of many of their students, argues Banzhaf.
Dealing With Crazed Shooters
At GWU, some 200 of its faculty claimed that having some GWU police armed is “more likely to reduce safety rather than enhance it.”
But this assertion by faculty members is contradicted by the overwhelming majority of GWU’s peer universities – as well as a clear majority of all universities – to arm their police, notes Banzhaf, a former security office and security consultant who recently published a detailed study of mass shootings on campus.
Instead these GWU faculty members – including faculty teaching Writing, Arts & Design, Studio Art, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, etc. – recommend bizarre tactics such as utilizing the “dignity of all people,” “deep empathy,” “nonviolent communication,” and “bystander intervention skills” to deal with crazed shooters on campus.
But the extent to which faculty opinion on this controversial issue is well informed is suggested by a recent survey which showed that virtually nobody on the faculty even knows how to lock classroom doors in the event of an active-shooter-on-campus alert, says Banzhaf.
Moreover, as the professor points out, deranged-shooter-on-campus situations elsewhere have had to be resolved by the use of deadly force – either to neutralize the shooter or to pressure him to shoot himself – and not by deep empathy, dignity illumination and enhancement, intervention skills, nonviolent communication, or restorative justice and weaponless civilian protection units.
There is also no support for the claim that having some GWU police armed is “more likely to reduce safety rather than enhance it.” Indeed, with all the school shootings which have occurred over at least the past 20 years, the misinformed faculty failed to cite a single situation where an armed campus police officer shot a student or faulty member on campus.
Reducing Gun Violence
Ironically, one of the protesting GWU faculty members asked (presumably rhetorically): “Where on [GWU’s] campus and in D.C. are the academic centers, like those at Johns Hopkins and Rutgers universities, that dedicate themselves to researching the causes of and solutions to gun violence.”
Prof. Banzhaf’s answer was simple and very telling: “Although – and perhaps even because – Johns Hopkins and Rutgers universities do research about solutions to gun violence, they have both reached the same studied conclusion that one way to reduce gun violence is to arm some of their own police, just as GWU is doing.”
Moreover, the claim that having armed guards does nothing to protect people and discourage criminal violence is also clearly at variance with the conclusions and experience of most universities which now arm their police, and literally tens of thousands of banks, governmental bodies, large corporations, and even individuals (from the President to movie stars) who are concerned about attacks from gunman and other criminals, and therefore have armed guards.
Even churches, traditionally bastions of peace and nonviolence, seem to agree, with a majority of Protestant churches (54%) now having persons with guns to protect against mass shooters; a figure which increases to 74% for larger churches (250+ in attendance).
Thus, despite these objections from what have been called a few “leftist students” and some on its own faculty, GWU has now joined the overwhelming percentage of universities which have concluded that having at least a few members of its police force equipped with guns is more likely to deter crazed shooters, and to deal with them promptly if they do appear on campus, than to endanger everyone except for rich White suburbanites.
