By Paula Huff
Arizona Daily Wildcat
September 25, 1997

University's "weapon free zone" increases risk of attack

Editor:

This letter is in response to the attacks on two female ASU students. These women suffered severe beatings and attempted rape at the hands of a couple of teenage punk kids. We can blame society for these crimes, we can blame the victims, or we can place the blame where it belongs - squarely on the shoulders of the Arizona Board of Regents.

Last year, the Board of Regents decided to follow in the footsteps of the Third Reich by declaring its state universities as "weapon-free zones." Like the Third Reich, state universities in Arizona are now "police states," as only the police may carry weapons.

It is extremely risky for a rapist to attack a woman off-campus, since many women in Arizona defend themselves by acquiring a concealed-weapon permit and carrying a firearm for self-defense. Many other women, like myself, openly carry a weapon off-campus. On campus, it is quite another story.

On the entrance doors to all the buildings on campus are window-stickers which declare the university as a "weapon-free zone." At the campus entrances are signs making the same decaration. To a criminal, these stickers and signs declare the university is a "self-defense-free zone."

In other words, the signs openly advertise the fact that state university campuses are teeming with thousands of unarmed women just waiting to be attacked, and they can't even defend themselves since the Third Reich (oops, I mean the Board of Regents) forbids self-defense on campus.

I am thankful I live off-campus. The girls' dorms are just too dangerous. The "weapon-free zone" signs all over campus merely announce to the world that the girls' dorms are a smorgasbord of unarmed, sweet young things, there for the taking. Every week in 'Police Beat,' we read about a strange-male-sighting in some girls' dorm or another. Rarely are these males apprehended. By living off-campus, if a strange male comes into my house and tries to attack me, the guy will NOT be leaving vertically, thanks to Maggie, my Smith & Wesson .357 magnum with the sight painted hot-pink for easy aiming.

Perhaps if the Board of Regents repeals its "police state" policy, perpetrators like the two punks who attacked those ASU girls will think twice before attacking university students in Arizona.

Paula Huff
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology senior