Concealed Weapons: Carry Them If You Have Them
You’re starting a new chapter in life. If you’re old enough to fight in a war, vote, own a gun, or benefit every from other right that other adult citizens enjoy, then you shouldn’t be stripped of your right to bear arms just because you decide to go to school at a state institution. We have the right to be able to protect ourselves regardless of where we are.
This topic has been a growing debate with the recent school shootings happening around our country. If it was known that the students on campus were allowed to carry firearms, would these violent acts have occurred? I feel that there would be a significantly small number of these attacks since I think people who would go into a school and kill innocent, unarmed people are cowards; if these cowards knew that the students could fight back and even kill in self-defense, they would think twice about their actions. Criminals are less likely to attack someone who they believe might be armed. The deterring effect of concealed carry benefits the individual carrying a handgun, as well as the general public since criminals never know who is armed as stated on Concealed Guns ProCon.org:
Criminals carry concealed weapons regardless of their legality. Responsible citizens should have the same advantages when it comes to protecting themselves from armed attackers. A vast majority of the time concealed handguns are an effective non-lethal form of self-defense. An autumn, 1995, peer-reviewed study by Gary Kleck, PhD, published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, found that when someone draws a concealed gun in self-defense, the criminal will simply retreat 55.5% of the time. (152)
Evidence has suggested that concealed carry on state school campuses on which students are allowed the right to bear arms has reduced crime. Stated by David Burnett, in 2003, Colorado State University chose to allow concealed carry on campus; since that time crime at...