My Favorite Comment, from the Armed Professors Thread:

Posted by commenter Hoosier:

In order to reflect the hierarchy of faculty, there would have to be stratification:
Assistant Professors get muzzle-loaders
Associate Professors get semi-automatics
Full Professors get automatics
Adjuncts get a sharp letter-opener
Chaired Professors are irrelevant, since they never come to campus

UPDATE: Commenter The Hobbesian Father (Greg for short) follows up:

I'm sympathetic to the plan, but I can't see how it would possibly work unless the changes to campus policy allowed grad students to shoot the bad guys for the professors.

Related Posts (on one page):

  1. My Favorite Comment, from the Armed Professors Thread:
  2. Armed Police Officers at Universities:
  3. Armed Professors and Mass Killings:
The Hobbesian Father (Greg for short) (mail) (www):
I'm sympathetic to the plan, but I can't see how it would possibly work unless the changes to campus policy allowed grad students to shoot the bad guys for the professors.
4.19.2007 4:50pm
Syd (mail):
What do Graduate Teaching Assistants get? BB guns?
4.19.2007 4:54pm
Ernst Blofeld (mail):
As that ancient piece of spam goes:

"PROFESSOR
Leaps short buildings with a running start and favorable winds
Is almost as powerful as a switch engine
Is faster than a speeding BB
Walks on water in an indoor swimming pool
Talks with God if a special request is honored"

And so on down the food chain to the technical staff.

I suppose in this case the technical staff would not officially be issued weapons, but would use university machine tools and their spare time to manufacture state of the art ICBMs.
4.19.2007 4:56pm
Ernst Blofeld (mail):
The grad students would shoot the bad guys, but the professors would get credit for the kill painted on their office door.
4.19.2007 4:58pm
CheckEnclosed (mail):
Would any oral examinations still be referred to as "murder boards"? How literally can "publish or perish" be taken?

Wouldn't the football and basketball coaches get more expensive guns that anyone else?

Isn't academic politics rough enough already?
4.19.2007 5:20pm
visitor from Texas (mail) (www):
Might I suggest that if you confront anyone with a gun in class, everyone through a textbook at the gun carrying individual.

If you are in a place to eat, and someone comes in, throw plates.

You are not limited to guns to have an effective response, only to have a conditioned one.

Books are especially effective when thrown because if they open they provide chatter, if they stay closed they hit fairly hard, and most students have a few.
4.19.2007 5:40pm
visitor from Texas (mail) (www):
Err, everyone throw a text book through ...
4.19.2007 5:41pm
Hoosier:
Thanks for the good 'review,' professor. I finished my manuscript last month, so I'm going up for semi-automatic next year.
4.19.2007 5:52pm
Houston Lawyer:
At my last firm, I brought a dagger to the office for use as a letter opener. My colleagues quickly came to conclusion that it violated the firm's weapons policy. So look out for those sharp letter openers.
4.19.2007 6:07pm
SB (www):
Fine ... but the electrical engineering departments should be able to arm themselves with rail guns.
4.19.2007 6:30pm
Maniakes (mail):
Grad students get pikes and halbards. Visiting lecturers get swords. Undergraduates get clubs and agricultural implements.
4.19.2007 6:34pm
A. Zarkov (mail):
Does a professor with five kills get to be called an "ace?" Can he display this fact on his office door?
4.19.2007 6:38pm
Tom Holsinger (mail):
visitor from texas,

When I was a first year student at Hastings in San Francisco and riding the Muni home to my flat just down the street from USF's law school, a purse snatcher grabbed a woman's purse and stepped into the middle exit door to leave as the bus was about to stop.

I chucked my hard-shell briefcase at the back of his head from about 5-6 feet away just as the door opened. The briefcase had my Criminal Law and Civil Procedure textbooks in it.

The perp was catapulted out the door, head first with his feet off the steps and rising. He dropped the purse inside the door and my briefcase fell straight down. The door closed with him lying flat on the pavement outside, and the purse and my briefcase inside the bus's steps and door.

A nice old lady picked those up, returned them to the victim and me, and said "Nice shot".

I had to use a screwdriver to pry the briefcase open in my flat. It was totalled.
4.19.2007 6:38pm
Ronald D. Coleman (mail) (www):
You should see these guys shoot on a bell curve!
4.19.2007 6:39pm
David W. Hess (mail):
The physics students get 5 megawatts . . . by mid-May.

On a different note, this is the first set of discussions that I have seen at the Volokh Conspiracy to have brought out the trolls to a significant degree.
4.19.2007 6:43pm
anonVCfan:
nice shot, indeed
4.19.2007 7:04pm
NickM (mail) (www):
"If you are in a place to eat, and someone comes in, throw plates."

Based on most college cafeterias I've seen, throw the food instead. It will do more damage.

Nick
4.19.2007 8:03pm
Big Mad Drongo (mail) (www):
Because most of them are sworn enemies of the United States.
4.19.2007 8:08pm
ADB:
Tom, nice throw. Was that the 5 Fulton Bus?
4.19.2007 8:09pm
Tom Holsinger (mail):
ADB,

Fulton something, I think - my stop was at the top of the hill by Kendricks. It was an overhead throw due to the lack of room (just enough space to swing the briefcase back, then slightly to the right as it went up, and finally straight forward), and worked only because I was so close.
4.19.2007 8:37pm
Rich Rostrom (mail):
Full professor: full auto
Associate professor: semi auto
Assistant professor: bolt action
Adjunct professor: single-shot
Teaching assistant: muzzle loader
4.20.2007 6:43am
Doug Sundseth (mail):
But what about professors emeritus? From the given progression, one might expect a recoilless rifle or mortar or heavy machine gun, but I'd actually recommend a matchlock as being more familiar.
4.20.2007 2:00pm
DocGlock:
Check out this extended riff along the same lines: The Graduate Student Guide to Automatic Weapons

http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~shivers/autoweapons.html
4.20.2007 3:35pm
C.I.F. (mail) (www):
Adjuncts will not be issues guns due to the realization that we outnumber 'real' professor three to one and would quickly take over the university.
4.20.2007 9:33pm