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[J. Morse Loyola]

Under the subject "Guns in the Classroom - SB 1070:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/H26L35L", I received this email at work:

The Gun Safety Charter is online and available for affirmation or rejection by all faculty, students and staff of the Arizona Universities.  It is a simplified version of the earlier documents discussed among the Regent's Professors of the three universities.  To register your opinion, click on the following link
or paste it into your browser:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/H26L35L

<a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/H26L35L">Click here to take survey</a>

(One response per computer.)

Please pass this URL on to all faculty, staff and students.  You may wish to do this with a cover e-mail of your own - my mail box is already flooded with responses to this issue.  I have attached again the Arizona Republic editorial on SB 1467 as well as the key provision of the bill itself, and you may wish to
circulate these documents.

Many of you have stated that you will not continue to work in an environment where our students feel threatened.  I am among that group.  I have founded one company that brought Agilent Technologies to Arizona, and am in negotiation to develop a new DNA sequencing technology that could bring other major
corporations into the state.  Our departure will impose many economic costs.  The loss of talented students is just as serious.  Finally, most of us feel that the scholarly communities exist to instill values that resolve human conflict without the need for lethal force, and that SB 1467 is antithetical to that.
I urge all of you to share these possible consequences with decision makers in this state.

Stuart

--
Stuart Lindsay
Regent's Professor
Edward and Nadine Carson Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Director, Center for Single Molecule Biophysics, Biodesign Institute
1001 S. McAllister, Tempe, AZ 85287-5601
Phone:       480 965 4691
FAX:         480-727-2378
Cell:        480 205 6432
http://biodesign.asu.edu/labs/lindsay
INTRODUCTION TO NANOSCIENCE IS NOW AVAILABLE IN PAPERBACK: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Nanoscience-Stuart-Lindsay/dp/0199544212

This is an unbelievably biased survey and the wording makes it sound like you'd have to be a card-carrying National Socialist to disagree with it. This is emblematic of the worst sort of academic liberalism: blind, sweeping moral judgments that polarize an issue into The Righteous and The Depraved.

I for one don't feel threatened by people carrying guns (or knives, or pepper spray, or keys, or martial arts training); but I do feel threatened by self-righteous intellectuals who would purport to know better than I do what my priorities are and presume to tell me what my morality ought to be. If they want to cloister themselves in an "unsafe zone" free of people who think their lives are worth defending, I'm happy for them. I will gladly hang out in the "safe" zone.

I am also tempted to demand from the Regents that they accommodate my second amendment rights and provide alternate educating methodology so that I might not be compelled to disarm myself simply to go to school. Either that, or they assign a police officer to me who has sworn that will quickly and enthusiastically die for me should I need to defend myself (but will otherwise not interfere in my life at all. I am a notoriously criminal jaywalker, after all).

Finally, I hasten to point out that the bill in question is not actually SB 1070. That was the Immigration bill so many people got their skivvies in a twist over. No, they seem to be talking about SB 1467, which actually states, "Notwithstanding subsection D of this section and section 15‑341, the governing board of an educational institution shall not adopt or enforce any policy or rule that prohibits the possession of a concealed weapon by a person who possesses a valid permit recognized or issued pursuant to section 13-3112 or the transportation or storage of a firearm pursuant to section 12‑781."  Fact-checking hasn't been allowed to get in the way of their narcissistic self-congratulatory groupthink before, so I guess it's a little late to expect it to now.

[J. Morse Loyola]

Indeed, if these bozos are going to refuse to work in an environment where "our students feel threatened", can I refuse to work because of the widespread and nearly limitless police presence on this campus? I feel far more threatened living in a police community than I do around gun owners.

How about we segregate campus on the basis of cop presence? Those in favor of a strong police presence can have one half of campus, and those of us who don't feel comforted by the words "I'm from the Government -- I'm here to help" can have the other side. Also, I demand that all the classes I take be free of police, both in class and in transit to and from, or the University must provide me with an alternate lecture location or offer the class online.

Finally, how about we teach people some basic self-respect and personal responsibility instead of hoping it will all turn out okay and the world is made of puppies and unicorns.