I thought college was supposed to make you smarter.

OK, my book (Above Reproach) has been out for a bit over two weeks now, and already I'm getting some real sweet "love mail" from the anti-gun groups.

In particular, some of the college campi crowd are taking me to task for having a couple of my main characters armed on a college campus. The fact that it was a private school somehow escaped their college-education-in-progress minds.

Just last week, I journeyed to the eastern edges of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex to celebrate the 21st birthday of a young man with whom his family and ours have grown close over the past four years. This is a family with old-world values and morals and who quietly walk the talk, rather than the vice versa we see out of so many people today.

The young man had all of his necessary instruction, shooting qualifications, paperwork, fingerprints, et al finished and was waiting on that magical day that some how transforms him from a snot-nosed rampaging can't-be-trusted punk into a responsible citizen who can now legally drink responsibly and purchase a handgun and carry it concealed.

My oh my but what a difference ONE DAY can make in our lives, eh?

Many years ago when I left the military and was at Texas Tech studying advertising and business, the drinking age had recently jumped up from eighteen to nineteen, with the promise of jumping up to twenty-one in a year or so.

The college campi students were understandably in an uproar, but they had an argument that rubbed me wrong.

"I'm old enough to register and vote and I'm old enough to sign up for military service and die for my country, but I'm not old enough to drink!"

Every time I heard that, I would ask the young person (normally a guy) to show me his voter registration and military ID.

Silence.

So, thinking maybe he was confused, I showed him mine. Then explained that he'd have no trouble drinking on any post or base he might be assigned to. . . AND that if he didn't like the law, he'd have to first REGISTER TO VOTE before his voice really would be heard.

I digress.

The anti-gun hate mail as it pertains to carrying on college campuses amuses me. The common thread is that students aren't mature enough, smart enough to safely carry a firearm to and from class.

Hmmm. I remember having a S&W .357 Magnum in my backpack just about everywhere I went. I had some hellacious schedules, often not getting out of class until well after dark. Anyone familiar with Texas Tech University (in Lubbock, Texas) knows the campus is a monster in terms of size and that it's a LONG walk to the parking lots and that the busses quit running (at least back then) even before the banks closed.

Like many universities, Tech had a "ghetto" surrounding it which was cheap housing for students--but it also attracted the usual human sewage who saw college campuses as easy hunting grounds.

Not for this student.

The e-mailers insist that students can't handle the responsibility of carrying a concealed weapon on campus. Yet, these same e-mailers (college students themselves, they say) have no problem raising hell about the drinking age.

Which makes you dumber--being sober and carrying a concealed weapon, or getting loaded then getting in your car and driving home?

The yo-yo's like to claim that student CHL holders would take their guns into bars, get drunk, crack off a few shots. . .

B.S.

The overwhelming majority of CHL holders I've met over the years have been incredibly responsible when it comes to adult beverages while they have a firearm on them or about them. This includes the younger generation. In fact, the younger generation seems to often times be MORE mature about that than those of my generation and age.

I was always under the impression that people went to college to get a little smarter, and most succeed. I did.

So why would being able to have a CHL and ensure my personal safety while on campus somehow make me dumber?

Seems like knowing the risks (crime, rape, assault, robbery, being mugged, some crazy shooter on campus, etc) and NOT taking responsibility for protecting yourself is the dumb thing.

These anti-gun folks just don't get it.

But then, they never have.

We gun-owners and CHL holders need to get behind and support our college students who do not wish to be part of the flock of sheep.

CampusCarry.com

ConcealedCampus.org