Does anyone else find it a little more than ironic that, just a few weeks after ETSU installed and tested an arguably hyper-paranoid, Cold War-era siren system on campus, the same campus allowed a student organization to hold a “no experience necessary, open to everyone” shooting range in the Mini-Dome?
Yes, apparently there were waiting lines for the chance to shoot glocks and sub-machine guns with silencers.
As Jessica Harbin mentioned in her article “Open Range Day offered by club,” the “morning started with an array of 15 different guns being offered with the Glock 19, MAC 11 submachine gun, 9mm AR15 and the .357 Revolver being featured.”
We may be mistaken, but we’re pretty sure that none of these weapons were created with anything else in mind except injuring or killing human beings, not hunting animals out of necessity or for sport.
What security measures were in place to ensure that the entire campus was not endangered by easy access to semi-automatic weapons? I’m sure Public Safety was there, you might say.
According to Travis Brown, the East Tennessean’s photography editor, Public Safety was not present at the time that he visited the shooting range on assignment for the paper.
Apparently, most of our Public Safety was dealing with a parking incident on another side of campus that evolved into a small-scale drug bust.
Perhaps one of the other participants could have gunned down another participant who decided to turn the sub-machine gun on bystanders – provided all the other participants weren’t cut down first.
Are we partially being melodramatic and sarcastic?
Of course, and we’re sure that we’ll receive responses saying that there were trained people on hand to deal with any situations.
We respect the fact that the event apparently went off without a hitch, but does that really lessen the irony or even alleviate our concerns? Certainly not.
The irony thickens when you consider one of the main motivations behind the new siren system and other efforts to secure our campus and when you consider that in this corporate, capitalistic society that we live in, financial liability is at the real root of most efforts to improve security and safety of any institution.
Just imagine the seemingly unending number of zeros on a check ETSU would have to write to the family of a student killed by semi-automatic gunfire that was actually sanctioned by the university.
We are not afraid to admit that we are not 100 percent pro-guns, not pro-war, not pro-hunting purely for sport, and not pro-National Rifle Association. Not even close.
We are also not afraid to admit that many individuals, families and even communities would not have survived the violent opposition to integration, voting rights and civil rights if they had not owned firearms for protection.
There would not even be a remnant of Native Americans had they not defended themselves with firearms.
We do not, for one second, fault the Black Panther Party or Louisiana’s Deacons for Defense for defending their communities against police brutality and Klan violence.
As a matter of fact, as we plan for our transition into community organizing in Mississippi by eventually moving there on a permanent basis, we haven’t ruled out the possible need for our buying a gun for our own protection – protection of our physical beings, never our property – and just a point of clarification, protecting ourselves doesn’t equate to taking the life of anyone who threatens us.
However, this issue is about common sense.
Can we really claim to be doing everything we can to ensure the security and safety of our campus if we host “no experience necessary, open to everyone” shooting ranges on our campus featuring semi-automatic weapons with silencers?
Is this even the real issue?
Throughout all of the news coverage and punditry surrounding school-shooting incidents since Columbine, there has never been a thoughtful and honest dialogue about what it is about our society that necessitates the need for us to take precautionary measures to prevent mass shootings at schools.
Like many other things in this country and on this campus, efforts at security and safety are reactionary and punitive rather than preventative and cognizant of root causes and social issues.
It seems that most would prefer to point the finger of blame at violent video games or music.
And yes, perhaps these things are negative influences, but it seems more rational to assert that those things are mere symptoms of a society whose members have been transformed into consumers rather than citizens, a society that gives lip service to the sanctity of life but values property and the almighty dollar over life and the environment, a society that promotes rugged individualism, but devalues diversity.
One reactionary policy that found a great deal of expansion in the aftermath of Columbine is the Zero Tolerance Policy.
Despite the typical profile of mass school shooters – disaffected middle class, suburban whites – zero-tolerance policies are often unfairly applied and disproportionately affect African-American students.
This policy is one of the main ways that African-American youth are channeled out of the educational system and into the juvenile justice system or even the adult criminal justice system.
Our next column will expand on what the Children’s Defense Fund has coined as the Cradle to Prison Pipeline.
But until then, take note of the events and behavior of ETSU community members that contradict the ideals that we preach.
Would our money be better spent researching and addressing the social and mental health issues and environment of our own campus and region that might motivate one of our own students to turn a gun on classmates?

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