More Ohio State students robbed at gunpoint; Buckeye state continues to enforce campus victim zones

UPDATE: Michigan State approves exception to weapons ban

By Gerard Valentino

NBC Channel 4 in Columbus recently reported a crime alert for the Ohio State University Campus after two armed robberies last weekend.

From the story:

University police issued two new crime alerts for the campus area after armed robberies over the weekend.

The first incident was reported just after midnight Saturday.

Three students, one male and two female, were robbed at gunpoint in the alley between 15th and 16th avenues, east of Summit Street, according to authorities.

...The second incident was reported around 3 a.m. Sunday.

Four OSU students said they were robbed at gunpoint behind 112 E. Chittenden Ave.

Once again, the students at OSU are at risk of being the victim of a violent crime, and the State of Ohio and The Ohio State University refuses to allow them the best means to fight back – legal concealed carry. Despite the mountains of evidence to support allowing legal concealed carry by college age citizens, the self-proclaimed center of Ohio's educational community continues to keep their head buried in the sand.

Somehow they think warning students after a violent crime has occurred is sufficient action on their part. But, their press releases, memos and "tweets" aren't enough.

The Ohio State University and its benefactors wield such an inordinate amount of power in the state that, without their approval, getting concealed carry reform on campus is all but impossible. Until they get their collective head out of the sand, it is highly unlikely our legislators will act to give students back the legal right to carry a gun while on campus.

If The Ohio State University administration announced a decision to support concealed carry on campus, our elected officials will fall over themselves to introduce such a bill. But, it is not going to happen as long as the administration chooses to stay behind the times in the live in the past on the gun issue.

We shouldn't expect anything less, however, from a university that fails to keep students from rioting after football games. Their policy of taking outdated and heavy-handed action against all students in the vicinity of a riot is another failed policy of the past. While the police and city administration in Sturgis, SD can keep thousands of bikers from rioting, somehow the Ohio State administration can't keep college students under control.

It is a progressive and modern policy of policing large crowds that keeps the bikers from tearing apart Sturgis. So, the decision to stick with a failed but long standing policy on handling riots is in keeping with the administrations failed but long standing policy on concealed carry.

An institution of higher education that preaches inclusion, tolerance, understanding and the pursuit of knowledge clearly isn't living up to their claimed values on the safety and self defense issue.

Their decision is yet another indictment of academic elites who refuse to practice what they preach. Instead they take positions on issues like concealed carry on campus and then use faked studies and falsehoods to make the so-called facts fit their point of view.

In an ironic twist, it is the pro-gun and pro-concealed carry on campus crowd that is taking the progressive position on the issue, and the position that supports inclusion of all viewpoints. Unlike the intolerant view of the anti-gun crowd, concealed carry advocates aren't demanding that everyone bow to their views on the issue. Instead, they push for students to be free to make their own decision on whether to carry a gun.

The administration has already been accused about misleading potential students about how safe they are on campus, and now is refusing to even consider an option for making students safer.

Parents who are trying to decide where to send their kids to college and where they will spend thousands of dollars need to ask what other issues has the administration made up their mind without proper research.

At this point, Ohio State's administration has fallen into the same trap as the establishment media in Ohio prior to the passage of legal concealed carry. Instead of doing honest research on the issue, they are only looking at studies that seemingly prove their point that more guns on campus mean more crime.

Unlike the school administration however, the Ohio media has had a few converts on the concealed carry issue due to the program's success.

Ohio State purports to be a prestigious institute of higher learning, when it comes to the concealed carry on campus issue; all they've shown is a willingness to stand by the wrong policy, at the wrong time, in the wrong place.

Gerard Valentino is the Buckeye Firearms Foundation Treasurer and writes for the ValentinoChronicle.com.

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