Campus gun ban violates Constitution(NH)

nashuatelegraph.com ^ | 12 January, 2012 | Tyler McAfee

[marktwain]

I am a 19-year-old college student at the University of New Hampshire, and my constitutional rights are not open for debate.

Specifically, the Second Amendment mandates that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” HB 334 has opened up a debate over whether college students should be allowed to carry guns on campus. We often hear that college students aren’t responsible enough to be trusted with guns.

If college students cannot be trusted with guns, why can we be conscripted in the military? If we cannot be trusted with guns, why can we be trusted with the authority of our state’s public offices?

We often hear the claim that “guns and alcohol don’t mix,” but the premise of this argument is fundamentally flawed.

In New Hampshire, guns are legal in bars. By this logic, we should violate the constitutional rights of bar patrons in our state in the attempt to keep guns away from alcohol. The fact of the matter is that guns and alcohol already mix without devastating consequences.

Stereotyping college students as irresponsible and alcoholics is insulting and erroneous. While one could argue that it would be prudent to regulate guns on campus – even though it isn’t – it is an irrelevant argument because it is illegal to infringe and violate the God-given rights defined in the Constitution.

The political winds of today will differ from those of tomorrow.

Tyler McAfee

Nashua

[marktwain]

The progressives do not want people to recognize that they have Second Amendment rights, because they might realize that the Constitution guarantees more than just the Second Amendment.

[television is just wrong]

my father always said it is NOT your civil rights that matter, it is your constitutional rights that they really want.