Fail: Professor Claims Gun Rights Lead to Grade Inflation
pretty female college student sitting an exam in a classroom full of students (shallow DOF; color toned image)
Most critics of campus carry couch their cultural bigotry against firearms and their owners in the dubious rhetoric of “public safety.” Yet an instructor at Texas Women’s University has come up with a new argument to suppress Second Amendment rights on campus. Writing in Newsweek, TWU Assistant Professor of Sociology Jessica Gullion stokes fears that campus carry would lead to rampant grade inflation. “Will we soon see a new sort of grade inflation,” Gullion asks, “with students earning a 4.0 GPA with their firepower rather than brainpower?”
We can answer that question with a simple, “No.” But for those paying for their kids’ college educations, consider that this is what passes for academic discussion of firearms policy in today’s institutions of higher learning. In this regard, it joins a tradition that includes calling for the death of NRA members’ children, insisting that campus carry is tantamount to blaming women for their own victimization, threatening to cancel class over the lawful carrying of guns, and reporting a student to police for giving an in-class speech on campus carry.
Gullion’s arguments about heated exchanges escalating into gun-fueled carnage are similarly divorced from reality and logic. In nearly every state that has a Right-to-Carry law, as the measure was being debated, gun control advocates frantically predicted scenarios of Wild West-type shootouts in the streets. This, of course, has not come to pass. Instead, modern America’s proliferation of firearms and lawful public carry have coincided with historically low rates of violent crime.
The Professor of Sociology Jessica Gullion should think about enrolling as a student next semester. It comes as a surprise that such an intellectual person could harbor such a ridiculous sentiment. If, as a professor, an individual believes that campus carries would lead to grade inflation, they should get out of their profession. Vacate the campus, and let the educational process carry on like normal.
Some parts of our society are very misinformed. These individuals, including Gullion, assume that guns only offer negativity to the community. Wrong. This professor must understand that not only is it our right as American citizens to bear arms, but it’s also an effective way to defend a campus from possible threats. As a teacher, I would feel safer if I knew my students were all legal carriers. It would be like having dozens of concerned citizens with firepower, making me feel all warm inside.
To correlate grade inflation with campus carrying is a product of misinformation and a skewed sense of reality. Gullion must back up her claim with statistics (which she’d be hard-pressed to find) before spewing her fallacious attitude again.
