Take it from Snee: About college shootings

Today is an important milestone for SeriouslyGuys: we’ve hit the two-year mark. In the past year alone, we’ve made huge changes. We write more (which might be good or bad). We switched over to our own hosting and got rid of Blogger. We changed our look to blend more seamlessly into the AIDS quilt that is Web 2.0. We even consented to selling merch to pay for our hosting and domain. And we couldn’t do any of it without you, the reader, and your wallet.

According to some Facebook profile, Ronald Reagan said, “The right thing is not always popular, and the popular thing is not always right.” We’ve awarded the President of Our Hearts posthumous Guy status for this statement (and for eating communist babies to make more room in the world for capitalist ones).

For the past two years, The Guys have taken some tough stands that weren’t always popular. While the rest of the world TiVos Animal Planet, Planet Earth and Planet of the Apes, we advocate taking the world back for humans before its too late and we’re all speaking dolphin. Everyone believes that more education will improve America; we know that’s hogwash. A lot of “experts” out there suggest we drink in moderation; if we did that, you wouldn’t have this Web site to make your work week more bearable.

This tradition of righteousness compels me to take a stand on college shootings.

It’s real easy and, therefore, popular for some in academia to take a stand against gun violence on college campuses–too easy, in fact. All one has to do is not shoot anybody. That’s like taking a stand against standing by remaining seated. Well, guess what? You have to stand up and take a stand at some point (probably to pee).

My stance on college shootings, however, is complicated, which makes it automatically unpopular. While I personally would never shoot students, there are some merits to college shootings that have been thrown out with the bathwater, baby and all.

College admission is so competitive these days that even a B-student with so-so SAT scores and a misdemeanor-only criminal record gets wait-listed. This means that the hypothetical applicant must wait until another student flunks out before going to college. Shooting sprees, though deplorable, open admission back up.

College shootings also increase campus security. Like with 9-11, we don’t take threats like mouthwash and steel-toed boots seriously until the excrement collides with the oscillating cooling apparatus. In this case, many universities now report violent crimes on campus to their students, some actually text messaging students’ cell phones. Colleges also now look more closely at psychological records and essays about using the claw-part of a hammer on a skull.

Subsequently, students also pay more attention to their communities. Immediately following any shooting incident, every college holds a candlelit vigil. Not only are these more environmentally-friendly than aerosol can vigils, but that recluse from the end of the hall can stand next to and maybe even hold hands with members of the Homecoming Court. Of course, these vigils also encourage another overlooked element of student security: safety in numbers.

Speaking of communities, nothing sparks school spirit like a college shooting. After the Virginia Tech massacre, other universities’ mascots switched to the Hokies.

As our government has figured out, the economy is linked to spending. Unless one is stockpiling their cult’s survival compound, guns are generally a one-time purchase and generally remain unused. But a shooting spree means mass quantities of ammunition. Think of each of those bullets as somebody’s job at a munitions plant. By expending as many bullets as possible, we are renewing our bargain with big industries to consume their products like there’s no tomorrow. (In exchange, we get more products.)

The economic possibilities don’t stop there, though. For every shooting spree on a college campus, colleges spend more on security measures and larger police forces. In short, college mass murderers are turning today’s economic stimulus into tomorrow’s economic boom. Who said liberal arts majors contribute nothing to America’s financial future?

I would be remiss to not concede that college shootings negatively impact innocent victims. Were it possible to commit mass murder without victims, it would truly be a, well, victimless crime. The latest incidents always end in one appropriate victim, though: the shooter himself, whether they do it themselves or have the police help. So this concession ends in another positive attribute of college shootings: a homicidal maniac is removed from society without hampering the criminal justice system.

So, unlike my lazier peers in the writing business, I refuse to take the easy stance on school shootings. Sure, they’re tragic in the short-term, but you have to look at the big picture. How can I condemn school shootings entirely when they generate jobs, revenue, new college students, community standards, security practices and school spirit? College shootings may not be popular, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t right.

2 thoughts on “Take it from Snee: About college shootings”

  1. Hold on. I didn’t see a Highlander on the big “VT/Whole world in his hands” picture. Am I to understand that Radford University, which is nothing more than a 30 minutes at most drive from Tech, got excluded from the picture/did not fall in line like a bunch of other schools in the country, but Dickinson College did?

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