The debate on whether the college campuses should be authorized to carry guns have triggered an intensive discussion among states governance introducing varying policies concerning this topic. While considering a number of campuses shooting such as the case in 2007 campus shooting, most of the state introduced laws that delineate the concern of whether or not to permit guns on college campuses. Following the passing of the two bills on 2013 which included the Kansas law that allowed concealed to carry while the one in Arkansas law that only permitted the faculty to carry guns in; all United States final verdict on implementing the bill has been left to the concern of the governance of the individual state. Some state has agreed, while others have left the decision to be made by the universities boards. The Kansas law provision is that the colleges and the universities should not be prohibited from carrying firearms in school unless the structures are proven to have adequate security measures. On the other hand, the Arkansas bill allowed only the faculty to carry guns unless the university board adopts a policy that expressly disallows them to carry (NCSL 6).
Among the recent contributors to this gun bill discussion includes the Tennessee which passed a similar bill to that of Arkansas’ in 2016 which authorizes the higher education faculty to carry handguns. In addition, Texas in 2015 became the recent state to conceal with the Kansa’s bill where Georgian was unable to pass this bill as the governor ultimately vetoed it. Similarly, the Governor Kasich of Ohio in December 2016 signed into law SB 199 which gives the final verdict whether the college and universities should carry guns to the to individual institutions. While turning the view of debate for the legal case to the actual scenarios that underpins the increased heat on whether or not to allow guns in colleges and universities, some discussions have seen the permission as an advantage basing their argument on the security of the individuals (NCSL 3).
David Burnett, a director of Public Relations for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) argues that the gun shooting that occurred at Virginia Polytechnic Institute is among the examples of college shooting that the student and the teachers were unable to fight for their lives when they were attacked all in the name of the gun free zones. He continues to discuss that student do assume that Gun-free areas are always safe, but the statistic do contradict with this assumption. David adds that, each and every citizen have the right to defend him/herself and so do the students and teachers and if they attain the responsible measure to apply for a gun license, then no law should deny them the right. The report on the Virginia Polytechnic Institute gun shooting began when the shooter gunned down two students in the dormitory taking two hours for the police officials to alert the student on the prevailing insecurity condition (Burnett 3). After like two hours later, while police still on campus, the shooter entered Norris Hall and continued murdering more students while during all this period even after the two victim bodies being discovered, the school official did not take the action of warning student on their safety that morning. The shooter succeeded to kill 32 people wounding 15 all in the name of the ‘safe zones.’
Despite the compelling discussion of Burnett, still, he did not look at how safe it is for a student to carry a gun to other fellow students and the lectures. In David Kopel article, he addressed the stresses imposed to the security enforcers when the law of authorizing guns to the students was passed. He says that, the authorization of carry law will trigger more threatens among the students and the lectures. Disagreements between student’s debates may result in a gun fight where also, students will threaten professors who give them bad grades altering the entire learning environment to something different. Though the Colorado state regulated firearm carry after the urge for the safety in 1970, after several terrorist attacks such as the Weather Underground, still the law applies under different criteria. These criteria include the student age of 21 where most students in the university attain this policy making the number of the carriers large. This fact has resulted in hundreds of student gunning each other out of disputes where most of the stories do not yield enough blood to make a cover page (Kopel 6)
To conclude, what makes me entirely convinced that student should not carry a gun, is that the worry and the threatening that came along with this permit are far beyond the fear brought by the terrorist attacks. A terrorist attack occurs one in a while, but individual gunned by their fellows out of disputed are frequently experienced. Reviewing some of the individual student murder examples that left their parent mourning, Santa Barbara is a victim of this scenario (DeFilippis 2). His son Christopher was gunned down near University of California campus, where the shooter remained unidentified until now.
- National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL) “Guns on Campus “(2015): 2-8. Web.
- Burnett, David “Students Should Have the Right to Carry Guns on College.” (2012): 2-8. Web.
- DeFilippis, Evan. “Campus Gun Control Works.” (2014): 2-9. Web. 19 Feb. 2017.
- Kopel David. “Guns on University Campuses: The Colorado Experience”.” (2015): 2-12. Web. 19 Feb. 2016