TO THE EDITOR:
Your recent feature article suggesting possible benefits of firearms on campus might have mentioned the inherent dangers involved, and it could even have touched on the question of why America has a problem with weapons proliferation. Instead, the narrative just makes firearms cool and sexy, and it naively suggests that they might be a way to combat sexual assaults on campuses. http://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2015/03/some-say-concealed-carry-on-campus-would-help-curb-assaults
I identify with the good intentions of senior Thomas Rees because I, too, was a bit taken with guns when I was a senior at UNC, and I might well have imagined that they could combat violence. Observation of events, however, has convinced me that the causes of violence are irrational and that neither firearms nor anything else will deter offenders.
In fact, brutality gives criminals the same rush that it gives to firearm aficionados on both sides of the law. In other words, guns, even when legal, are inherently not nice, and as Wild West instruments, they fascinate us. So yes, it is OK to be cool and sexy, but don’t think that a ballistic gimmick like this will alleviate the problem of crime.
Rather, we must reduce opportunities for crime and deal with its motives. Meanwhile, guns remain a public health problem in America which we now need to abate, not feed.
Hubert W. Hawkins
Class of ’64
Charlottesville, Va.http://classics.unc.edu/files/2013/11/tabulae_fall2001.pdf page vi he said Charlottesville in his email
