Attention college students. Put down your beer bong and water pipe long enough to read An Open Letter to the College Students of America

Self-protection is a basic human right and it has been recognized as such for centuries! It is not a privilege to be handed out by administration nor can it be doled out to a privileged few through legislation. In every case that you can name, violence happens to individuals or groups when they have surrendered their right of self-protection to some other entity besides themselves. It matters not if it is a community’s trust in its police force, a campus’s trust in the administration and security group or a civilian population disarmed by decree of the government, when you surrender the right of self-protection to another agency, you voluntarily place your life at risk. It should be obvious to anyone that it is not possible for the police to be in every single place where violence can occur and that at best, police officers are provided to maintain the appearance of law and order, yet in most cases of violence they can only write reports, investigate the behaviors of the law breakers and perhaps notify next-of-kin. You may believe that it is the obligation of your local law enforcement agency to protect you and seeing security guards on your campus may make you feel secure, but in fact the courts have proven time and again that there is no obligation by law enforcement to provide for an individual’s security. Note what Jeffrey R. Snyder wrote in his 1993 essay; A Nation of Cowards:

Is your life worth protecting? If so, whose responsibility is it to protect it? If you believe that it is the police’s, not only are you wrong — since the courts universally rule that they have no legal obligation to do so — but you face some difficult moral quandaries. How can you rightfully ask another human being to risk his life to protect yours, when you will assume no responsibility yourself? Because that is his job and we pay him to do it? Because your life is of incalculable value, but his is only worth the $30,000 salary we pay him? If you believe it reprehensible to possess the means and will to use lethal force to repel a criminal assault, how can you call upon another to do so for you?

College students are known world wide for claiming to know everything on one hand and having no clue on the other. Also for when a crisis comes along, they can be guaranteed to try the absolute wrong thing every time. So I doubt they’ll take this type of advice until it is way too late.

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