In the past month there was an upraise debate on whether or not students can carry a handgun on college or university campus due to the recent gunman shooting at the University of Texas.
Just after the shooting, public debate started on talking on the issue and government official in favor of having guns in campus used the event to promote the idea.
I remember watching republican senator Dan Patrick on local television saying that we are putting students, professor and staff at risk by not allowing them to carry a concealed gun. This senator even tried to pass a bill to remove the current ban.
This is just one example, but many are using event such as this one to try to pass bill that would in my opinion rather make the problem even worse. I personally would not feel safer if guns were allowed in campus, that is not were they belonging. Campus police officers are well trained to do their job on those circumstances. Police officers respond quickly enough to take care of the problem in a professional fashion. If guns were allowed, and if something happen then in some cases would not be able to identify who is the gunman since other student may have taken their guns out and may injure somebody. Also sometimes, a person has some strong emotion for many reasons and may want to use a gun, but if the gun is in the backpack, there is more chance to use it. Instead of allowing guns, I would rather concentrate on providing diverse help to keep stress down for the one who needs, providing some kind of hotline to take calls for the one who want to talk about personal issues. Emergency system such as mass texting and shelter preparedness are better solutions. No guns in campus is the way it is suppose to be, but in Texas it is not surprising that such debate will rise since owning guns seems to be deeply installed in the Texan tradition.
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In reading my colleague’s blog “Bring Books Not Guns” and he is making the argument that people should bring books instead of guns to school. I just want to say that I agree with my colleague, but however I do see the argument of people bringing guns to defend themselves.
My colleague used the example of the unfortunate instance that a student from the University of Texas went inside the library on campus and committed suicide. Although this is a sad instance, I believe it is a very rare one. Unfortunately when an individual decides to go into a crowded room or building usually before the person commits suicide, he murders a few people in the process. There are usually plenty examples of this every year, some factory in Pennsylvania, some post office, or Virginia Tech. The Virginia Tech incident claimed 32 lives. I wonder if any of the 32 people who lost their life would have had a gun if the numerical outcome would be different.
The argument that police are well trained in these types of emergencies is true. Still it takes to much precious time; 30 seconds can seem like an eternity in that situation. I am not trying to make universities into the Wild West; I am just merely suggesting that there should be a happy medium. I just don’t know what that medium is, but I do know that if you are a crazed gunman, and you want to shoot up some university, the “no guns allowed” rules will not stop you from shooting up the place.
Guns or Books in bag-pack?
Reading one of my classmate’s blog bring books not guns where he was debating that guns should not be allowed in college or universities, and I completely favor his argument. As for example he talks about recent incident which that happened at the Library of University of Texas at Austin. He personally doesn’t feel safe allowing gun in campus and I agree that. I wouldn’t feel safe if I knew my classmate has gun along with his/her books or my professor carries gun. Even at some point we all agree that someone carries gun for self-defense, but still chances are high that it could be misused. Someone with strong emotion might want to use gun or even some kind of personal issues might force to use gun. My colleague also states that campus police are trained well enough and will respond in a professional manner in emergency situation.
I know in mass of thousand students you never know what might come up but allowing everyone to carry a gun is surely not better idea.
In the past months there has been controversy across the state of Texas whether or not a student can carry a concealed gun on campus due to the recent shooting at the University of Texas. The passage of a campus carry bill during the 2011 Texas Legislative Session would amend state law so that individuals over the age of 21 who have undergone the training, testing, and extensive background checks required to obtain a state-issued concealed handgun license would be allowed to carry concealed handguns at state colleges. I watched Senator Don Patrick address the issue, and support his argument saying it would make the classroom a lot safer. I’m in shock that he even thinks this would be a logical decision if anything I believe it would make things worse. I also strongly agree with my colleague that students should not be allowed to carry guns on school campus. It wouldn’t make me feel any safer. It would actually make me more cautious of my surroundings. I also agree that the campus police officers are well trained but it might possibly a better decision to allow professors to carry a gun on campus then students. I also agree with my colleague there should be an emergency system such as mass texting. Or even better an emergency siren alarm system that would initiate a lock down instantly securing the classroom.
I completely agree with my fellow classmate in his blog "Bring Books Not Guns". He has stated some good facts and due to what happened just a couple of months ago at The University of Texas, I would not say that had a good light on this whole subject.
Some people can argue saying that if we would have allowed students to have guns they would have felt safe if they had a gun with them, but it would have probably caused an even bigger scene.
If carrying a gun would be legal on campuses then just anybody could have a gun and that would make me personally feel unsafe because we do have some people out there that aren't really that sane and could basically "crack" at anytime with any little thing. I would not want to be around one of them when they get a bad grade on their big test or anything of that nature.
He also makes a good argument saying that the campus police do respond in an orderly fashion and are trained to use guns when they are needed. Also if everybody was able to carry guns and the person didn't see the gunman’s face but said they had a gun, well they basically described a chunk full of people but not THE gunman.
He does bring up good suggestions as to having hotlines where people who need to talk but feel that they can't talk to anybody can call the hotline and keep them anonymous and hopefully solve the problem without using violence. I say that we should keep the ban to not allowing ANY weapons on campuses.
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