Campuses worldwide have fell under tragedy and it seems to be a problem that’s just getting started. Recently Texas joined the ranks of several other states by allowing students and teachers to carry a fire arm on campus, of course the students and teachers have to get the proper certification, but this decision has created a storm. Gun violence has been one of the main topics at hand for a good time now and within the last decade it has spread into the school systems. The most important thing in the argument in gun control is safety, and no doubt safety is the key point to both ends of the argument, no matter what side you chose. The idea of allowing campus carry creates a sense of direct protection to anyone who partakes within this practice. Schools are blind to the fact that, people are already walking around public malls, grocery stores, and parks with concealed and licensed firearms.
James Knitter, leader of the Concealed Carry on Campus chapter at the University of Arizona, provided great insight that we should not only let bad guys carrying guns, but open it up to the good guys with a more stable mindset on what is right and wrong. By allowing campus carrying on, students and staff now play a role when a school shooting occurs. The fellow advocates could reduce and quickly end a potential mass shooting from uprising and causing havoc on the nation if campus carry is strongly enforced, because the participates can react quicker to the situation then the time it takes for the police to arrive. By the time the police arrive, it may be too late, so the idea of allowing campus carrying helps ensure another Columbine accident does not occur.
Not only does allowing campus carry promote protection to oneself and others that surround the advocate, but putting self-defense on a limited base causes corruption to this inherent trait. It has been proven by many incidents throughout history that campuses cannot fully protect a student from attackers, which is more of a reason to give a person a fighting chance to protect and save one’s life. A joint study by Secret Service, the Office of Education, and the FBI highlights that between 1900 and 2008, a total 272 incidents of violence occurred within college campuses. With that being said, 54 percent came from the attacker using a gun to cause harm to incident bystanders. It is a known fact that if students where given a chance to protect themselves, the number of incident deaths would decrease and cause this high percentage to decrease.
Denial of campus carry is a very popular trend due to the vast amounts of problems and conflicts that can be evident because of a deadly weapon. This statement is backed up by the statistic that 21 states have policies in place that prohibit the possession of guns on campus. College officials foresee the idea of allowing their students to carry firearms, will cause confusion at times when freak incidents happen and they are afraid those who had no part in the attack will get hurt due to them having a gun in their possession. Advocates of banning guns completely from campus also argue that, guns will cause paranoia and fear to spread among the fellow students, when instead they should live a stress free life.
Also they shouldn’t cause someone to feel unsafe at any moment. At the University of Texas at Austin, over 280 professors and counting have signed a petition against the idea of campus carry. They believed that carrying a firearm will interfere with the student’s freedom of speech in class and will cause them to become distracted in the state that their lives can be in danger at any moment of time if campus carry is admitted. An alternative to this gun ban is the idea of having these weapons locked up at an specific location around the school and to be accessed by authorized personal if they chose to take action on any attack.
The underline base of going against campus carry is to give the students and faculty a double shot of ensured protection from paranoia and make them feel comfortable in their surrounds without any constraint. The idea of allowing campus carry, while denying it in certain sections of the school is as very possible. For someone to be able to participate in this practice, they must first be of age, have experience on how to operate the gun functionally, and certified with the school officials in order to have the campus carry method. This new idea will not only suit a majority of the needs from both sides of the argument, but it will give each side some comfort, while not shunning one or the other. Overall the articles that support campus carry, go against campus carry, and are 50/50 on the subject all represent their message through strong cases and data analyze. With that being said, the idea of going against campus carry had a weak spot of only being one dimensional, by repeatedly stating it will cause paranoia and reduce confusion during an incident.
On the other hand, the concept of allowing campus carry had a broad idea of reasoning to as why we need to be armed at all time. Self defense, protection to one’s peers, stopping an attack before it gets out of hand, practicing a right we citizens should value, and lastly the wishful thinking that the more “good guys” carrying a firearm will minimize the number of attacks. Both, sides to this argument fired strong cases and responses, while exposing a weak spot to their practice, but ultimately stated their major reasonable benefits for choosing their pathway.
