It wasn’t all that long ago that one of the gravest fears on campus was an active shooter. The fear was largely overblown, as the likelihood of its happening was minuscule, yet preparations and drills became all the rage. After all, if it did happen, there was no excuse for being unprepared to face it, to stop the shooter, to save the lives of students.
Now that’s forgotten in lieu of the priority du jour.
Portland State University is disarming its campus police. The university announced police will not carry firearms while on patrol but will be authorized to carry “less-than-lethal” weapons, including Tasers.
Yes, those are the same Tasers that resulted in the occasional death that caused it to be recharacterized from “non-lethal” to “less-than-lethal” to accommodate those who died of Taser’s (now Axon, after all the “difficult” press it received when people who weren’t supposed to die kept dying) resurrected diagnosis of “excited delirium.”
For the most part, a Taser is a much better choice of weapon for use on campus, since dead students don’t pay tuition. But that’s not the reason for the change.
“The continuing tragedies across our country demonstrate the disproportionate impacts and unacceptable loss of life that policing has on Black people and people of color,” Portland State president Stephen Percy and Board of Trustees chair Greg Hinckley wrote in a message explaining the decision.
“Over the past few weeks, we have listened to many voices across our campus,” the message continues. “The calls for change that we are hearing at PSU are ringing out across our nation. We must find a new way to protect the safety of our community, one that works to dismantle systemic racism and promotes the dignity of all who come to our urban campus.”
It’s unclear whether Portland State College police had a problem with shooting black students, although there’s neither evidence to suggest it nor any statement from its administrators implying it. Rather, the move seems to be in reaction to other cops in other places using force against black people, so they want to “dismantle systemic racism” too by stripping their police of guns that weren’t being used to harm much of anyone.
If someone comes onto campus with a weapon and starts shooting, what do they plan to do about it?
If someone comes onto campus to harm one of their students, what do they plan to do about it?
Not to make this a joke, but you don’t bring a Taser to a gun fight. Some will indulge the fantasy that there will be guns locked away in a box somewhere, and if they need them, they’ll just go to the box, unlock it, pull out a gun and, boom, problem solved.
If an active shooter is picking off random students one by one, how many die while this fantasy plays out?
If there was a problem at Portland State College with their cops using guns to harm black students and students of color, then that would compel action to address it. What that action would be would depend on the cause of the problem, whether bad hiring, training or perhaps a toxic atmosphere of racism within the ranks of the college cops. But there’s no indication that any such problem exists, that the Portland State cops are anything other than wonderful officers who treat students with dignity and courtesy.
This isn’t to say that the problem of an active shooter will happen, or is more likely to happen now that Portland State’s police are unable to swiftly do much of anything about it. But this reflects how the tune has been lost in the name of the moment’s passion. There was no problem with their police being armed with guns, but that didn’t mean they shouldn’t be unarmed in support of concerns having nothing to do with them.
And yet, when they need a gun, should a horrific tragedy happen on campus that demands a cop to be armed, they will have to face the consequences of this decision. Sorry, dead students, but we meant well.
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