To the editor:

Concerning the prospect of students carrying guns on the KU campus: As a KU faculty member for 30-plus years, I had my share of students who came to my office to complain with varying degrees of emotion about their grade on a severely graded exam or their assigned grade in my course. (One student pressured me for a full year to give him a passing grade in a failed course required for graduation; another used threatening language with students house-sitting for me one summer.)

Recent research reveals that the pre-frontal cortex, the part of the brain that provides one the ability to weigh the possible consequences of his/her actions so as to exercise sound judgment when presented with a difficult situation, is one of the last parts of the brain to mature, a process not complete until age 25. Considering my experiences in the light of the immaturity of the average college student’s pre-frontal cortex, you can see why, were I not now retired, the prospect of a hot-headed unhappy gun-carrying student confronting me in my office would be sufficient for me to consider early retirement very seriously. It would take only one such angry student, whether the gun is concealed or not, to do irreparable harm.