Our View - Sunday

UCCS STUDENTS WANT THEIR GUNS
Sad, senseless rule puts lives at risk 

    It's dangerous and absurd, and students at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs want it to change. They want university officials to lift a dangerous ban on guns that makes the campus vulnerable to suicidal mass murderers and other brands of psychotics that are known to prey on college students.

    Unfortunately, a small group of misfits lives among us in the United States. For whatever reason, they are angry and they hate this country at least as much as some foreign terrorists do. We've seen them at Columbine High School, at Virginia Tech, at Northern Illinois, at a Pennsylvania Amish school. The incidents have become so common that the list is too long to print. If fires struck schools as often, all students would wear compact fire extinguishers. And that's just to mention the high-profile mass murders students rightfully worry about today. Let's not forget that school campuses are traditional playgrounds for rapists.

    Unbelievably, in a world where students are targets, most states and college administrators tell them they can't have guns on campus. They tell this even to highly trained students who've earned and paid for concealed-carry permits so they can protect themselves and others against criminal aggression.

    Students at UCCS don't want to take it anymore. At CU-Boulder they fight for their right to party. But at UCCS they fight for their right to carry, and it's a battle they need to win.

    A group of local students have formed the UCCS chapter of "Students for Concealed Carry on Campus." The national organization claims more than 23,000 members. They're lobbying CU regents to lift the dangerous, senseless, immoral and egregiously irresponsible ban on guns that makes students a bunch of sitting ducks.

    Their sensible battle won't be easy. Amazingly, millions of Americans believe gun restrictions somehow reduce gun violence. They never seem to catch on to the fact that suicidal, murderous maniacs don't care about gun rules. Only their law-abiding victims obey gun rules. As such, the students are battling opposition from their own UCCS police chief, Jim Spice. He told Fox Channel 21 that someone might see a concealed weapon and get scared.

    "No matter how hard you try, someone is going to see that concealed weapon," Spice said. "They no longer feel free to express whatever thought, whatever topic they happen to be debating at the time."

    They need to get used to it, Mr. Spice. This isn't a game. It's not another polemic that intellectuals in the hallowed halls of ivy can waste time tossing around, fretting about theories and perceptions and students who might fear guns. This is a matter of public safety and human lives. To a suicidal psycho, a classroom full of unarmed students is opportunity. It's that simple. To forbid trained students from wearing their guns is to set a stage for murder. CU regents should change the policy, immediately, before the blood is on their hands.

NO INSURANCE; BREAK THE LAW 

    It's the grand prize of politics. Fix health care and be a rock star. Unfortunately, some things can't be fixed at the Capitol. But that's a memo state politicians refuse to read.
Both parties in the Colorado General Assembly are gleefully pushing a Senate bill they've called a bipartisan blueprint for universal health insurance, setting a goal of health care for all by 2010. Shockingly, Republicans seem as overjoyed as Democrats regarding the most overreaching and frightening bill to pass through Denver in years.

    The bill, a brainchild of Sen. Bob Hagedorn, D-Aurora, is patterned after the Massachusetts health care program, signed into law by former Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican.

    Most notably, the Hagedorn plan would make it a crime for anyone in Colorado to choose against purchasing health insurance. Those who don't buy insurance would be penalized on their taxes, and subjected to other nasty sanctions of the state. It's a bit like addressing the homeless problem with a mandate that every human buy a house, or else suffer financial punishment. Imagine if there were only so many houses to go around, and every living being was required to buy one. It's a supply and demand nightmare scenario, and the health care proposal isn't much different.

    In an effort to make the bill sound something less than insane, legislators will direct the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, along with the Division of Insurance, to develop a new bare-bones health insurance package that offers something less than comprehensive coverage. That's to make us believe the program won't over-burden the health care system.

    Mandatory health insurance will be a disaster, just like the program in Massachusetts. The system of Romney & Co. has resulted in higher health care costs, lower quality health care, major rationing, and a looming exodus of doctors from Massachusetts. Patients sometimes wait months to see a doctor, because everyone's entitled to consume health care now. Some residents can't find doctors accepting new patients at all, even though they're forced to pay for insurance.

    The problem with health care is one of supply and demand and controls that interfere. There's more demand than supply, and that's why the price goes up. Legislators, by mandating health care coverage, will only increase demand on a system that's already unable to keep up for a variety of reasons, most of them regulatory. Hagedorn knows his bill has problems, but he feels compelled to save the day.

    "The alternative to this bill is to do nothing, and I don't find that acceptable," Hagedorn said, as quoted in the Denver Post.

    Mr. Hagedorn, please do nothing. It's the best thing you can do. The problems with health care have resulted from too much interference from politicians, not too little. You can't fix the system, and you'll only make it worse.