Sarkeesian, who is best known for her YouTube series “Tropes v Women in Video Games”, assessing various anti-feminist trends in gaming, was scheduled to talk at the university on Wednesday, when the unsigned email was sent.
The author of the email threatened that if the talk was not cancelled, they would carry out an attack in the style of the 1989 Montreal massacre, when Marc Lépine murdered 14 women, claiming he was “fighting feminism”.
“I have at my disposal a semi-automatic rifle, multiple pistols, and a collection of pipe bombs,” the letter said. “This will be the deadliest school shooting in American history and I’m giving you a chance to stop it.”
THE REST.
I like to think I'm a reasonably smart guy, but I cannot for the life of me see the logic in the police response. They receive a specific threat of lethal violence on a university campus, and their response is to... allow guns into the auditorium.
ReplyDeleteNope. Can't fathom it.
Apparently the Utah concealed carry laws mean that you can't frisk people? Because they might have concealed-carry licenses? Or something? Anyway, I have crossed Utah off my list of places I will ever visit, ever.
ReplyDeletePlus, I don't believe the police excuse. Do you think that if the president or any other politician were planning to speak that they would not have metal detectors? Even in Utah? They just didn't care about her or about the women on campus.
DeleteAgreed. I'm no expert on this, but I'm pretty sure that someone's right to concealed-carry a weapon doesn't necessarily trump the right of the police to know exactly who in a room with an identified vulnerable person is, in fact, concealed-carrying (and, if necessary, to assign someone to keep a very close eye on each of those people).
DeleteI'd also love to know how they'd handle a presidential debate (especially one that involved a sitting president or vice-president or, maybe, a former first lady with secret service protection) on this campus. Somehow, I think they (or a functional secret service, which we may or may not have) would figure out a way to at least identify where the guns were, if not exclude them entirely. If that can't be done in Utah, then I suspect we're not going to have any presidential debates on campuses in Utah (or any other state with similar laws).
Or, for that matter, what would they do if Gabby Giffords were scheduled to speak, and received threats from 2nd-Amendment extremists?
I can tell you how the campus at which I am employed handled a presidential debate that was held here, which is that we didn't - the Secret Service insisted on all corridors and entrances to the debate area being sealed off, closed to the rest of the university, and they handled security. No way could any student or anyone else made it down those corridors or entrances - the Secret Service would have stopped them.
DeleteI disagree that they should have gone forward with the event. If they were a private university, sure, they can establish their own policy and ban guns. Being a state university, they were forced to comply with Utah's open carry laws, which means they're legally obligated to allow guns. So, they had two options: cancel the event, or go forward knowing that anyone who wants to could carry a gun to the event. The latter is just too risky. A private university would have been able to legally ban guns, but not the state university, and given the two options, I think they made the right call.
I've lived in Utah for a few years, where I felt very much the outsider (not being a Caucasian American or an LDS member). Some local residents made it a habit to "haze" our international students by shooting at their apartments with BB guns and yelling, "Go back to Vietnam!" (never mind that these were Chinese and Japanese students). I use the word "haze" because that's what the police called it when we filed complaints.
ReplyDeleteOne of my students was repeatedly stalked and harassed by an American student and the campus police stood by and laughed and made jokes about how if she didn't know how to speak English, she shouldn't have attempted to flirt with Americans. They thought it was hilarious and a sign that she should "go back where she belongs," as one stated.
So I am not surprised that a place with the mentality of "this is our land and our home" would respond with a, "We don't really want the hassle so we aren't going to even attempt to placate this woman who isn't one of us." They COULD HAVE assured her that they would increase safety measures, but they didn't want to. It seemed a good excuse to simply not even hassle with having her on campus. I'm not sure my current campus (on the West Coast) would have acted any differently: our campus police don't have the power to cover someone 24/7.
And by "I've lived," I meant to write "I lived" (I no longer live in UT). :)
DeleteI do not think they could possibly guarantee her safety as long as they were compelled by Utah state law (since it is a state school) to allow open carry. Even if they said, "sure, the whole audience could be carrying, but we'll keep you safe," would that have been acceptable? I don't think so. Given that they could not ban firearms as a private school would have done, then what choice did they have but to cancel?
ReplyDeleteI take your point, and I certainly agree that the police are, and should be, bound by the laws they are sworn to uphold. But this reminds me of a game that university administrators also love to play. It's called "Blame-another-level-of-administration-and-or-government-as-a-way-of-defending-the-indefensible". And because every level of administration-and/or-government is busily blaming another level of administration-and/or-government, the whole system continues to apply policies like allowing concealed firearms into college auditoria even when there are direct, specific threats of extensive lethal violence. Indeed, if the game is played well, it serves to draw attention away from the fact that the policy being defended is... err, how shall I put this delicately... Batshitfuckinginsane!!!
DeleteAnd clearly, as has been pointed out above, there are levels of administration-and/or-government (mostly government in this case) who realize that that the policy is indefensible, as evidenced by the unwillingness of government bigwigs to speak in college auditoria where concealed carry weapons might be present. They clearly realize that a "good-guy-with-a-gun" is a less reliable safety precaution than keeping-anybody-with-a-gun-out-of-firing-range-never-mind-whether-they-are-good-bad-or-mediocre. Or, in other words, they aren't willing to live by hte same rules that they expect everyone else to, which somewhat undercuts the whole "the law is the law and we all have to respect that" argument.
It's true that my original comment referred to the police response specifically. Perhaps that was unfair. So instead, let me offer that the entire law enactment-enforcement continuum - police, legislators, and even the electorate who puts them into office - appears to have succumbed to some sort of collective madness on this issue, and that sooner or later somebody might want to snap out of it.
I think you all need to read the back story. the FBI determined that these types of Emails follow her wherever she goes, she is also an anti gun nut, and this is probably part of her act. They said the show should go on, she is the one that declined.......
DeleteEven if I could find a source for that info that wasn't a "men's rights" blog, I'm not sure that information would make much difference. So now it's multiple threats, therefore guns in the auditorium are OK?
DeleteStill not quite wrapping my head around it.
Re: Anonymous -- She's an anti-gun nut? Part of her ACT? She's less than thrilled about women being beaten-raped-tortured-disemboweled-butchered in video games and this is what you offer? Troll, be gone.
ReplyDelete