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Jon Wiener: Professors with Guns: The Arizona Plan

[Jon Wiener teaches US history at UC Irvine. His most recent book is Historians in Trouble.]

The Arizona legislature is considering a proposal to authorize the carrying of weapons on campus by faculty members. The idea is simple -- in case of trouble in the classroom, somebody needs to be able to blast away at problem students. But the question arises, should all faculty members be armed?

Adjuncts, for example --part-timers, "freeway fliers," paid by the course -- are often burning with resentment over their low status and high student debt payments. They are more likely to be part of the problem on campus, more likely to need to be kept in line by others with guns. My suggestion would be that adjuncts and part-timers should be prohibited from carrying guns on campus....
Read entire article at The Nation