Taylor Woolrich is a student at the Dartmouth College. Like many students she has her classes, tests, homework and other day to day activities of a normal student. She has her friends, papers to write, and meals to eat, I think we all recall those, either with a fond, or not so fond memory.
However, Taylor has one serious situation which most students do not have, a stalker.
For four years a 67 year old man named Richard Bennett has been stalking her. It got so bad she even filed an restraining order. But like many restraining orders, it did little to protect her. He showed up on a return trip home from college with what police called a ‘rape kit’.
Currently he awaits a bond hearing and trial. The lengths he goes through is terrifying for a teenager, and now a college student. So she goes to the school to ask if she can carry a concealed handgun.
The college’s reply, no. She should use the college security. However, are they going to be there twenty-four hours, seven days a week to provide protection.
Instead, the college leaders will put her life, and perhaps others at stake because of their misguided ideas about guns. Perhaps these wise leaders of the college should try to live a day of her life. The fear she feels about being stalked for four years. The college does not care about her safety. They will say all the right words about campus security, and how friends should help protect her. Yet in the end, all it takes is one moment where no one is looking and the college could have a dead student on their hands.
They should know, it is her right to be able to protect herself.