Safety. We use that word so loosely at times it can seem to mean everything and nothing at once. It can mean peace and war, noise and silence, weapons and the lack thereof. Such times call for moral and factual clarity. It requires a clarion call for people of good will to stand together to fend off those who would attempt to delude or confuse us into counterproductive policies and fearful stances. Fear mongering to ward against is happening at our school as we speak, and it is in favor of the onerous policy of Tasers. Supporting campus safety for all students’ means supporting our Public Safety officials to continue their currently safe practices without Tasers.
Tasers are not a defensive tool. They are a danger. Many arguments in favor of Taser use are, and should be, that they’ll keep people safe. Unfortunately, those determined to commit violent acts are less affected by these electric guns. Note that armed guards did not stop shootings at Columbine nor Virginia Tech, for example. Weapons can however, lead to more tense and violent interactions for Public Safety officials and other community members, as UW-Madison professor Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony LePage noted in a 1967 report called “Weapons as aggression-eliciting stimuli.”
These researchers found that people who saw weapons in a room were more likely to deliver an electric shock to a person than people who did not see weapons. This means people just seeing a weapon can get pushed to be more aggressive, to tend toward violence. A serious matter, this can look like several things in real time. This can be people provoking fights near Public Safety, hoping to draw them in for either assistance or to grab their gun. This can be crossfire, where shots from several angles are fired and students needlessly dying in the process. This can mean the difference between an effective conflict resolution and a needless death of an innocent.
Such predictions are all the more dire because Tasers are a prelude to bringing guns on our campus. James Bottoni, our Public Safety director has noted publicly that the intention is to move from Tasers onto even more lethal weaponry. This belies the idea that the proposals do not include killing power, because the Taser is a Trojan Horse, and bullets are the hidden troops.
Sadly, for all the possible and probable dangers of Taser use, there are woefully few reasons to actually support such weaponry. We have one of the safest campuses in one of the safest cities in America. The FBI stated that in 2012 the city of Madison sits was the fourth safest in the nation. If in a discussion about safety, the fact that we are already safe does not move us, then what about safety really matters? Additionally no evidence of actual incidents requiring a Taser has been provided by anyone in favor of Taser use.
What’s likely is that we have people in positions of power eagerly awaiting a shot to use guns because for many, despite facts and figures guns equals safety. For many others however, the lack of a true need for Tasers, the very real danger to many communities in our midst, and the lurking threat of guns on campus means our students are not safer with Tasers. Instead of mimicking the politics of fear around other colleges in this nation but standing tall in our progressive tradition to say no to dangerous weapons like Tasers.