I have been reading through my classmate’s blogs and one stood out that I felt the urge to comment on. The blog, A Student’s Perspective had a post called, Not Anti-Gun, Just Practical. Throughout this post the author continually brought up that she was in support of people having guns, but not in support of having a concealed hand gun on campus. For those of you who don’t know, there has been a bill that was passed by Senate and heading to the floor allowing concealed hand guns on college campuses. This bill has caused quite the uproar because have been so many people against it and so many people for it. Lura C. has been one of the people against it. Her reasons, I get them, but they aren’t completely well thought out.
First of all, let’s be honest and realize that if someone wants to carry a handgun on campus, they are going to whether there is a law allowing them or not. In one of my criminal justice classes a few weeks ago this issue was actually brought up. From students in my class, at least 10 of the 100 people there had said that they either had taken their gun with them on campus before or knew someone who carried one daily. That right there shows that people are going to do what they want to do, so why not just allow this. I mean is someone arming themselves for safety purposes really a crime? No. We don’t need any more worthless cases crowding up our court systems.
I understand Lura’s concern when it comes to people being intoxicated and having a gun on them, but the thing is how many of us go downtown on a weekend? Concealed hand guns are allowed there and we aren’t freaking out about it. There aren’t people being shot each week. I mean, yes, it makes sense to be worried if there was some drunk idiot roaming around with a handgun, but that already happens, so why wouldn’t you want to arm yourself for safety reasons and be prepared. Wouldn’t you want a handgun to even the playing field if someone was coming at you?
Also, something to note about the handgun license in general is that you have to be 21 to have one. Therefore, there will only be juniors and seniors carrying around these handguns. You’re worried about maturity levels, I know, not everyone can handle that responsibility. The only thing is though, is we have to hope that as people do grow older, they also mature. Something to possibly suggest would be that if this bill does pass, they should have certain qualifications be added to the concealed handgun license. They should maybe make people take classes a few times a year to make sure that they can actually use their gun accurately. Also, they should make them take a test twice a year on their accuracy, and if it doesn’t score a certain percentile then they get their license revoked. There are many different things that the government could do to make sure that the people receiving their concealed handgun license are capable of having it, therefore if they brought it onto a campus, it wouldn’t be a catastrophe.
Overall, I do see where you are coming from; I just know that unfortunately, people are going to do what they want. It is as plain and simple as that. You probably know people that carry a gun to school in case something were to happen. I mean, I go to UT and when the shooting happened here where the boy brought a gun into the library there was mass chaos. Now I know the kid ended up shooting himself and not anyone else, but if he was about to shoot someone, then maybe it could’ve been prevented. So, as I am sure you’ve come to the realization that I support the bill, so how does everyone else feel about the issue?
-Kelsey Scott
I agree with you 100% on this issue regarding concealed handguns on campus Kelsey. I too support this bill that hopefully will be passed. It is everyone's right to be able to protect themselves in the event of a crisis. Unfortunately, in this day and age you never know what harm might befall you when you are in an educational institution, simply trying to obtain an education, so why not allow students to be prepared to defend themselves if need be? You brought up the recent UT shooting where a young man brought an AK-47 assault rifle on school grounds, and randomly shot rounds off before shooting himself. Luckily in that situation he was not able to bring harm to anyone else, but what if he had? The Virginia Tech shooting is a situation that should leap out at everybody in regards to this concealed handgun issue. In that situation, nor in any situation for that matter, would you be able to know that a certain individual is about to go off the deep end and cause so much chaos. Seung-Hui Cho was able to take the lives of 32 individuals that day, a day of sadness and mourning for many people who lost loved ones to say the least. But who knows what the outcome might have been if there had not been a ban on individuals possessing a weapon on campus. The irony there is that even if an individual held a concealed handgun license, student or professor, firearms possession on the campus was prohibited. Who knows how many lives could have been saved if someone was able to stop the chaos that was occurring simply by having their handgun on them and taking action.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you in regards to your view on the requirements on possessing a concealed handgun. There are steps and a processes currently in place to ensure that an individual meets certain requirements to carry a concealed handgun, and rightfully so. I do feel that maybe we should have more stringent qualifications and tests in place so that we ensure that not just anybody is walking around with a concealed handgun, but at the same time we should be able to have responsible citizens that are able to defend themselves and their families if need be, and by any means necessary. I am a family man myself, and while I do not currently own one, I plan on obtaining a concealed handgun license in the near future, because I for one do not plan on having my family or myself become another victim or statistic due to the mental instability of another individual.