Generation Kill

Abstract

The obsession with security on university campuses across the United States has come to assume varied meanings and multiple forms. In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) poured billions of dollars into university defense-related technological research and development, becoming its third-largest federal funder; university presidents partnered with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in a joint task force to fight the growing global threat posed by ideological “extremists” and new degree programs and courses in homeland security emerged, while existing curricular offerings, from Middle East studies to peace studies, came under fire for harboring alleged pro-terrorist sympathies.1 And again, in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre of April 16, 2007, the issue of campus security assumed top priority. The day after the shootings, a student movement was formed called Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC), whose mission is to secure the right to self-defense by allowing students to carry concealed weapons on campus. One year later, the movement boasts over 22,000 members on 500 campuses nationwide, numbers bolstered by a subsequent shooting rampage at Northern Illinois University in February 2008. By the spring of 2008, twelve states considered legislation to grant college students the same gun ownership rights as every other citizen.

Here our philosophy must begin not with wonder but with horror …

—Friedrich Nietzsche (42)