Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Panic On The Campus!

"Man With A Gun" meets "Leaping To Conclusions."

     Quick legal review: In Indiana, it is generally lawful for you to possess a gun on a college campus...unless you are a student or employee, in which case you had better check your school's rules.   Things are a little more hazy if you're, say, a patient at one of the teaching hospitals on the IUPUI campus, most (if not all) of which are posted "no guns." OTOH, while it may be legal to open-carry a rifle on the IUPUI campus, or a handgun if you have a carry permit, it might not be wise.

     Okay, got that?

     How about having a rifle in the trunk of your car?  What happens if someone sees it and goes all weak in the knees?

     The campus gets "locked down," is what.  For four hours -- and nothing was found.  The gun -- unless it was a joke umbrella -- apparently was never even out of the trunk of the car it was seen in; the car itself seems to have eluded the police dragnet, probably without the driver ever knowing what was up.

     Since the IUPUI campus is on the large side, quite unfenced and includes a couple of hospitals, the "lockdown" was more of a suggestion and they're fixing that by promising to never use the term again.

     How they're going to fix people freaking out over a glimpse of something sort of rifle-ish in a trunk, well, that's not even addressed.

     (State universities used to have shooting ranges.  One of Tam's educated pals talks about shooting practice at the IU Bloomington indoor range, I think in the basement of the student union, not very many years ago.  Is there a range at IUPUI? It looks unlikely in light of this story, which extended to dozens to squad cars, police scuttling around with assault weapons patrol rifles, hovering helicopters and a nearby public school doing an actual doors-locked lockdown; we had everything but crying interviewees, over next-to-nothing.  O tempora!  O armes!)

10 comments:

Joanna said...

What, exactly, has to be left out of a person's upbringing such that their reaction to a potentially dangerous object sans obvious dangerous intent is to hyperventilate and call for Mommy?

Anonymous said...

Hadn't thought of it before, but a certain amount of open carrying should provide some degree of inoculation against random hysteria.

Bubblehead Les. said...

FYI, my Alma Mater, THE University of Akron (as if there were another) has a Range under the Schrank South Building. And it's a State University. But it's only for use by the ROTC people, the Police Academy and the Campus Police. The Ordinary Student Peon is "PROHIBITED BY LAW" from having a Gun on Campus at all, CHP or No CHP.

But since it's an Open Campus, with Public Streets and Sidewalks running through it, they always seem to have a Hissy when some of the Open Carry Crowd takes a Stroll through the Campus.

Bubblehead Les. said...

FYI, my Alma Mater, THE University of Akron (as if there were another) has a Range under the Schrank South Building. And it's a State University. But it's only for use by the ROTC people, the Police Academy and the Campus Police. The Ordinary Student Peon is "PROHIBITED BY LAW" from having a Gun on Campus at all, CHP or No CHP.

But since it's an Open Campus, with Public Streets and Sidewalks running through it, they always seem to have a Hissy when some of the Open Carry Crowd takes a Stroll through the Campus.

Rob K said...

In 1991 as a freshman, I shot a .22 target pistol in the pistol range of the Purdue CoRec. I bought the ammo there, and rented the pistol from them.

Of course, that was the only place a student could have a gun or ammo on campus according to the rules.

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

If there is or was a gun range at IUPUI, I never knew about it, and I probably would have. Although Shomes may have more to say on the subject; he moves in different circles than the ones in which I moved, plus I've been gone from there for nearly 19 years. :)

I imagine the IUPD folk in Indy train at the same place IMPD do, e.g., our public-when-cops-aren't-using-it range at Iggle Crick. I can't remember if we had ROTC or not, but they probably would have shot at Fort Ben back in my day.

greg said...

We just had one of these in Olympia last week. It got THREE schools locked down...and helicoptors called out.

http://dumvivimus-vivamus-greg.blogspot.com/2013/03/welcome-to-your-world.html

Old NFO said...

Nanny state... sigh... NO reality...

Jake (formerly Riposte3) said...

Hysteria like this is why - living and working right next to Virginia Tech as I do - I don't open carry.

Sadly, despite being one of the nation's six Senior Military Colleges, VT's cadets have to be bussed off campus to the nearby National Forest shooting range for their firearms training.

Shermlock Shomes said...

I am still cheesed off about this. As I told a colleague at IUPUI yesterday, "We are now held hostage by hysterical people. And pulling a fire alarm as the tried and true method of exam avoidance will be replaced by the anonymous call reporting a man with a gun."