On March 30, the House of Public Safety Committee heard and considered a bill that would allow concealed hand gun licensees to carry guns onto campus. Currently, the law is such that a gun may be brought and left in a vehicle, but cannot be carried on a person.
It has been reiterated that the bill is only pertaining to LICENSED carriers (a.k.a. LEGAL gun owners with a CHL,) and that the number of CHL carriers on a college campus is very small because to even take the first class, one must be 21 years old. These people are highly trained individuals with wonderful statistics nationwide regarding their levels of violence, accidents, etc., and are allowed to carry their concealed weapons in most buildings including but not limited to churches, state capitols, and movie theaters.
The argument against the bill is that allowing weapons on campus of any kind will only foster violence, accidents, and theft. Surprisingly (and at the same time, not surprisingly), universities and campuses are the main ones standing in opposition to this bill.
However, the argument for the bill is that by allowing legal and licensed, concealed hand guns on campus, the students will be further protected. Those for the bill promote the example of the Virginia Tech shooting: How many students would have been saved if a CHL carrier shot down the shooter faster than the shooter could shoot down innocent, unarmed citizens? Also, the North Texas Conservative blogger presents all sorts of information in this blog regarding statistics.
We can also look at this mandatory gun owndership law in Kennesaw, GA, and the statistics regarding crime rates. To sum it up, every household was required to own a gun. Crime rates? They plummeted. 3 murders since the passing of the law 16 years ago, 2 with knives and only one with a firearm.
Basically, I think allowing legal, licensed, concealed hand guns to be carried onto campus would serve only to protect in the same manner that police officers carry weapons. Only to protect, and only to be used in extreme circumstances. CHL holders are, again, highly trained individuals. Who's a raving lunatic going to attack? A campus that allows concealed, licensed weapons or one that doesn't? You decide.
Test Blog #1
14 years ago
Lauren,
ReplyDeleteI’ll preface this with that I hate guns. I disagree with you on the idea of allowing concealed guns on college campus would be a great thing. I’m not about to say that allowing weapons on the campus will turn all universities into reproductions of the O.K. Corral. I won’t vocalize that the sudden increase in the hobbies of carjacking and murder will indeed take the stead of study groups and library research. These types of reduction ad absurdum arguments against your position is exactly like the ones the pro and anti gun groups are using.
The use of Virginia Tech as evidence for the pro-gun movement seems odd, since in our own backyard we’ve had the horrible instance of the UT Tower massacre. Maybe the detachment from our own city makes it easier for people to relate or it could be bringing the Austin incident would be in bad taste. Either way, I don’t believe that if a CHL bill had been passed in Virginia it would have altered the events at Virginia Tech. Neither does John Woods, a student who went to Virginia Tech and lost his girlfriend and friends in the massacre. These what-if type disaster scenarios can be dangerous. These beliefs dwell in a hypothetical fantasy world where everyone plays the hero and not the victim.
You bring up the shining example of low crime rates in the Georgian city of Kennasaw. The city has never enforced its mandatory gun laws. This allows people to still live in the town without sharing the adamant belief of owning firearms. The statistics regarding the crime rates in Kennasaw can be adjusted to give favorable light to both movements. Either way, that city is not a university. The idealism and thinking that universities provide students clashes with others a lot more frequently than normal suburban life. We are taught to commonly critique individuals which can be perceived as a confrontational action. Adding weapons to misinterpretation seems like a bad recipe.
I don’t think it’s a good idea at all. I believe that equipping overstressed students and faculty member loaded firearms to use only in the event of a school massacre is the metaphorical equivalent of living in a bomb shelter just in case someone drops the big ones on us.
John
I’m apologizing for putting this in but I found it as a funny side note. In this Associated Press story, one of the pro-gun supporters is Luke Farmer. This unlikely mascot carriers a neon green sign which says “Don’t Listen to Liberal Fear Mongers” and proudly states, “Just sitting around waiting for the police… doesn’t sound much like a plan.” I find it funny that the poster boy that the AP arrived at is a trigger-happy, dem-hating guy that talks like a bad action-movie star.
Lauren,
ReplyDeleteYou make several good points on the pro's of college students having a licensed hand-gun, and a CHL on university campuses. Such as your example of a different outcome to the tragic Virginia Tech shooting, if those witnessing students would have had a gun there to protect themselves. Though, unfortunately no one will ever if it would have gone down any differently. The fact of the matter is, I personally do not believe hand-guns belong on school campus's. I don't know about you, but I personally would not feel comfortable sitting behind some one in class with a hand-gun strapped on their belt. I mean, even though he may explain the fact that he has a CHL, if some one has a gun around me and I am not personally comfortable with them, I get nervous. It think it would just lead to other problems with trust issues, and cause more strife between students.
I would like to state that I am a firm believer in having fire arms, as long as it is licensed, you are trained properly, and practice responsible actions while handling and shooting it. I grew up around guns, coming from a hunting family, but I do not believe they belong on school grounds. That is, unless you are a police officer or security. That is what they are trained and get paid for, protection, I don't think that we need any young adults on campus strapped with a gun at their side, thinking they are John Wayne.
Lauren,
ReplyDeleteFirst off I am a supporter of our right to bear arms. My father had guns in the house, my brother in law is a police officer, and I encouraged my husband to purchase a gun for our home. However, the thought of giving college students the right to carry concealed handguns is not a policy that I would agree with. In fact it is down right scary. I believe that the Virginia Tech shooting was a one off event that no matter what kind of laws were in place something like that would have happened. If not at Virginia Tech, then maybe at another campus. Could someone have killed or stopped the shooter before he killed as many as he did, possibly. But what about the argument that the shooter could have planned out such an event with even more detail resulting in more deaths. Imagine if the shooter would have been able to walk into a freshman history class with over 300 students while legally toting a handgun. Even more unfortunate deaths would have resulted.
Another reason I feel that isn’t a good idea to pass such a law is that 21year old college students aren’t as mature as you think. Most of them have trouble keeping track of their books or laptop can you imagine a gun? Twenty one year olds are too busy celebrating the idea that they can now legally have a drink. Now you want to give them the right to carry a handgun to my calculus class?
I say leave the guns on campus’s to the experts, the campus police. College is an institute of higher learning, not the old Wild West.
Lauren comments on the proposed bill that would allow handguns on college campuses. Her position is not firmly stated but she does lean for the passing of the bill. Her tone is not aggressive which suggests that she is analyzing and providing information but is not 100% all for it. I believe Lauren’s audience is general because she does explain and give information about the issue in a very clear diction.
ReplyDeleteLauren provides information and reasons for the positions taken both for and against the bill but does not seem to give her own position on the bill; as she ends her commentary with “You decide,” prompting the reader to do just that, take a position in a very controversial issue indeed.
Lauren needed to go into more depth about the possible positive affects the bill would have on campuses if passed. The paragraphs are not organized; I think she should have broken up the paragraphs a little more for easy flow.
Lauren’s use of a question as the title and also in her conclusion is successful in catching the reader’s attention and getting the reader actively involved in her reasoning.
I like the way Lauren explained both the negative and positive affects this bill would have in college campuses if passed. Why people want to pass the bill and why some do not want the bill to be passed. I think this is very important to the reader so that one can better decide a position on the issue.
When Lauren presents references such as links to statistics, she does not provide details and a thorough introduction to her link. I feel she did not take the necessary time to bring new arguments to the discussion other then the basic pros and cons. This made her commentary less interesting.
Overall I think she does backup both arguments very well and her embedded links as references provide the reader with very important information that helps understand the broadness of the issue being discussed.
I don’t support this bill at all because I think we should and cannot live in fear, the number of tragedies in college and universities has been very tragic but there just has to be another solution to the problem then to let any licensed individual carry a gun around on campus, just because you are licensed does not mean you don’t have issues.