The Government of the Student Body deserves applause for its leadership in recommending that ISU Police carry firearms. Although this decision was obviously not easy, nor unanimous, it is the correct and common sense answer to this issue.

However, some of the rhetoric being aired on this subject by various conspicuous members of the ISU community, particularly those of State Sen. Herman Quirmbach, is disturbing, to say the least. With all due respect to Quirmbach and his opinions, his position is simply untenable from a practical standpoint.

The situations faced by our campus police are similar to those faced by any other police force in the nation, be it the Ames police or the Iowa State Patrol. Both of these organizations carry firearms.

The campus police also have identical or equivalent training to that of any Ames police officer or Iowa State Patrolman.

In some of the rural areas of this state, there are entire counties that haven’t seen a murder or an armed crime in decades, yet the police are still armed. How, then, can there be any strong argument for why ISU Police shouldn’t be armed, just like their counterparts?

If there is support for unarmed police here, is there then also support for disarming the rural sheriff’s departments? The State Patrol? The city of Ames is a safe place. Shall we disarm the Ames Police as well? The statistics, in this case, are easily overridden by simple common sense.

Quirmbach’s assertion that arming campus police at Virginia Tech wouldn’t have helped is easily countered by this cautionary tale, well-documented and remembered by those a generation older than myself:

In August 1966, a man by the name of Charles Whitman went on a shooting rampage from atop the tower of the University of Texas’s Main Building. For 90 minutes, Whitman rained death from atop the 307-foot tower, killing 15 and wounding 31, including several young children, mothers and bystanders, as well as college students. Whitman was shot and killed by armed officers and deputies of the Austin Police Department when they stormed the building he was in, ending the killing and mayhem.

As a matter of common sense, police officers would not realistically have had a chance of dealing with Charles Whitman – or any of dozens of other incidents that could be cited – had they been unarmed.

Opposition to this measure, particularly on the part of Quirmbach, can also be seen to be of a highly politicized nature. Quirmbach opposed this same measure at the Statehouse in April of this year, helping to defeat Amendment 3371 in a closely divided Senate.

Had this amendment and the bill it was attached to passed, this entire discussion would be unnecessary. This is Ames. Leave your Statehouse politics in Des Moines.

And what do we lose by arming our officers? What harm is done to anyone if, as we all hope, the officer’s firearm never leaves its holster? What, conversely, could be the potential benefits of arming our campus police, in the event that a Virginia Tech-style incident was to occur here?

Quirmbach’s comments in this regard are perhaps the most troubling. Having unarmed police involved in any shooting incident, or, indeed, any armed altercation whatever, simply turns the officers into yet another target. People look to the police for protection and security in times of distress. Leaving them unarmed puts those officers in precisely the same condition as those they are sworn to protect under these circumstances, a thought which is neither a comfort, nor of much practical use, to anyone involved.

What is being misunderstood here, however, is that this issue is not about gun control, the Second Amendment or anything political. The issue is our safety as a community and the ability of our police to protect us quickly and effectively.

Opposition to these ideals, especially by a state senator, is upsetting at best, and dangerous at worst.

– Ryan Frederick is a senior in

management from Orient.