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Knowledgeable professors.
A posh fitness center.
A peaceful quad.
Security guards packing heat and trained to shoot.
Lethal weapons, until recent years, didn’t rise to the top of the checklist for most prospective college students and their parents when selecting the “right” university. Things changed, in part, because of the carnage witnessed on April 16, 2007, at Virginia Tech. Campus safety now deservedly draws more interest from the public and poses greater challenges to those charged with providing protection.
At King’s College in Wilkes-Barre this week, certain security guards began carrying handguns. The college did not supply specifics about how many employees on its force, headed by former Wilkes-Barre police chief Gerald Dessoye, already possess the appropriate training to patrol with a weapon or how many might ultimately obtain Pennsylvania’s Act 120 or Act 235 certification. A King’s spokesman said the college intends to maintain a “hybrid” security team, of both armed and unarmed workers.
The Catholic institution’s announcement regarding its campus guards was inevitable, and perhaps overdue.
It’s been nearly 50 years since a sniper infamously occupied the University of Texas clock tower in Austin, killing 14. About two decades ago, in a bucolic Central Pennsylvania setting, a troubled woman carried a rifle onto Penn State University’s main campus and opened fire, wounding one person and fatally shooting another. If not for a passerby who sprang on the shooter and wrestled away the gun, the toll might have been higher.
Wilkes University – a private institution only blocks from King’s, and which vies for many of the same students – indicated in June of last year that it would immediately arm five of its 16 full-time guards. By now, at least three others were expected to complete the state requirements and complement their work uniforms by adding holsters and sidearms.
In a 2014 editorial, we noted Wilkes University’s move contributes “a layer of protection to the surrounding community.”
“The two colleges’ security teams collectively provide more eyes and ears to detect potential trouble, and to increase collaboration with the city’s police force,” the editorial stated. “If the horrible happens, they’re near at hand, able to respond rapidly And in the case of Wilkes’ safety crew, some of those who respond will … be toting handguns.”
Certainly, no one should consider guards with guns the only, or even the best, campus safety precaution. Students and parents ought to consider factors such as how well the institution reinforces personal safety messages, the availability of security escorts and even outdoor lighting.
But until America comes to grips with its gun violence, why not fully equip campus guards as another layer of protection?