There’s a horrific story out tonight about Anita Sarkeesian, the feminist, blogger and gaming critic, who has pulled out a speech she was going to give at Utah State University after an emailer threatened a “Montreal Massacre style attack” if her speech wasn’t canceled. To get a feel for the sort of character we’re talking about, the anonymous emailer – purportedly a student at the University – said “feminists have ruined my life and I will have my revenge, for my sake and the sake of all the others they’ve wronged.”
There’s part of the fine print to this story that I also want to call your attention to. University officials, in consultation with law enforcement, had apparently decided that it was safe to proceed with the event. But Sarkeesian, not unreasonably, asked for extra security, including pat downs at the gate and metal detectors.
If I’m reading Sarkeesian’s tweets correctly, University officials seem to perhaps agree to this (not clear on this point). But whatever searches they did, if they found people coming into the event with firearms they would not disarm them “as long as attendees [had] a valid concealed firearm permit in accordance with Utah law.”
In other words, the extra security precautions would not include preventing people with firearms to come in to watch the speech.
