Not Just Packing Notebooks and Pencils Anymore

This fall American students will pack their bags in order to fill their minds with a higher education as they head towards college campuses; however, this season comfy converse tennies, college-ruled notebooks, and specialized coffee keurigs will not be the most popular items for the college student’s packing list. What will be an additional item to their packing list this fall is most likely their handy-dandy sidearm, and according to the Youtube Video Top 5 Guns For The College Bound a great pick is the Canik tp9. Because of recent state legislation and court rulings, Texas and eight other states now have provisions allowing the carrying of concealed weapons on public post-secondary campuses, this legislation will take place this coming college semester in the fall of 2016. Despite providing a minority of students and school officials with a falsified sense of security, firearms should not be permitted on college campuses. College campuses are meant to be sanctuaries for young, bright minds and older, educated minds to connect over studies that will shape tomorrow. College campuses are not meant to be abysses for students and school officials to trek in fear because a minority of students and school officials decided to carry around weapons that are capable of discharging a lead piece at very high speeds, high enough to penetrate flesh.

Adam Winkler, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles’s School of Law, and the author of Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America poses a significant question, “Should guns be normalized and part of our everyday existence, or should we teach young people that there are places where guns don’t belong?” (Pesta). It is important to note that the new legislation that allows students to carry and conceal makes guns seem almost as trivially common as booze on a college campus. As if carrying a complex arrangement of metal parts that is capable of discharging a lead piece at very high speeds, high enough to penetrate flesh and thin slabs of wood, will be almost as similar to the pen in a student or faculty member’s back pocket. An incoming college freshman, Ashton Chan, stated in an article posted by The Huffington Post that he sees his “college-age apprehension to spring from the simple things, like if I’ll someday be able to support myself in this uncertain economy or whether the planet will still be inhabitable by humans at the point I graduate.” He does not see “fear of being fatally shot by a gun-toting friend or acquaintance” as apart of the college experience. He states that he’s

“got the rest of [his] life for that” (Chan).

Many other students, like Chan, and college officials see that college campuses are not a place for such weapons. Politicians are making the laws, but the students and faculty affected have had little say in the matter. According to a poll of more than 20,000 employees across all Kansas Board of Regents schools, 82% said they’ll actually feel less safe when students are allowed to carry guns. Kansas has recently passed legislation, as it is one of the nine states that will allow campus-carry laws this fall. Moreover, two-thirds of school officials said that guns will “limit their freedom to teach the material and engage with students in a way that optimizes learning,” according to NPR. “My concern is if I am in a classroom and I am teaching and we have controversial topics,” Mark Chertoff, a University of Kansas professor told Kansas City’s 41 KSHB, “the environment there is going to be very difficult if I know people have guns in the classroom” (Sarran-Webster).

Many students and teachers feel that allowing their peers to carry such lethal weapons will restrict a safe learning environment. When guns aren’t a factor, professors and students can feel more comfortable discussing difficult or controversial topics and even engaging in debates, without the fear of a disagreement turning into a shooting. When this new law is in effect, though, people may be afraid to speak up “because of their worry that someone might react with armed violence instead of thoughtful debate” (Sarran-Webster). David Smith-Soto, a professor of multimedia journalism at the University of Texas at El Paso since 2004, feels “threatened by the presence of guns on campus” (Smith-Soto). In Smith-Soto’s words college is meant for “intellectual sparring. It is the essence of academic freedom — the mill that grinds the grist that yields moments of enlightenment” (Smith-Soto). The New York Times Journalist, Javier Auyero sums it up best in his article, Guns on Campus Make Colleges Less Safe, what most college officials and students are feeling with these words,

what I do fear, what I am truly scared of, is that we will get used to the presence of guns. I fear that sharing a classroom with students “packing heat” will stop shocking us as it now does, and that we will become something other than what we are: Women and men committed to teaching and learning in environments where everybody can freely express his or her ideas.

When it comes to allowing students the ability to carry guns on college campuses a strong point made is that campuses are already high-risk territory, we don’t want to put “firearms in the hands of college students, a cohort that includes emotionally volatile young men and women and abusers of alcohol and drugs” (Skorton and Altschuler). When it comes to college, their advertisements may show “pictures of serene and smiling students walking blissfully across their meticulously manicured campuses or decked out in school colors and cheering on their team in football stadiums” (Chan). However, it is important to note or remember that “the college years are not, typically speaking, the easiest time of life for most people. Sure, relationships bloom and opportunities abound, but so does stress, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse” (Chan). According to the F.B.I., mass shootings account for less than 2 percent of gun-related deaths, while suicide accounts for roughly 61 percent of gun-related deaths. In the words of Jazz Silva, A New York Times journalist and college student at Rice University in Texas, “College students are more likely to use a gun on themselves than to protect themselves during a mass shooting” (Silva).

A strong argument of campus-carry proponents is that guns can help women and men protect themselves against sexual assault and other forms of violent crime. Michael Newbern, assistant director of public relations for the advocacy group Students for Concealed Carry supports the Texas law, arguing that people have a right to self-defense. A U.S. Navy veteran and a recent graduate of Ohio State University, Michael has a license to carry a concealed weapon, but can not carry his weapon on campus. He says he became an activist for campus-carry laws when he began thinking about how students are vulnerable to crime. “I’m six feet two, 210 pounds: I can fight back. But what about people who can’t? What about disabled people or small-statured ones?” he asks. “It is morally reprehensible to limit how people defend themselves” (Pesta).

As terrible as what can happened to students and faculty members is, it is hard to hypothesize what may happen if they were armed. Yes, the situation could make a turn for the better when students have the ability to stop such disasters, but to assume is just that to assume. Colin Goddard agrees with such a statement. A survivor of the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, he says that in a mass shooting, it’s hard to think at all, let alone defend oneself. “People casually debate this issue and fabricate scenarios in their heads, but you don’t know how you’ll react in the craziest moment you could never imagine. Time shuts down,” he explains. “When you are conjugating verbs in French class and suddenly someone is shooting at you, it’s not easy to respond” (Pesta).

A strong proponent of campus-carry laws lies in the story of Amanda Collins, a cofounder of the advocacy group Women for Concealed Carry, Collins speaks from experience. She was a student at the University of Nevada, Reno when a stranger grabbed her from behind, forced her to the ground, and raped her in a campus parking garage in 2007. “There was a point during the attack when I knew I could have stopped it if I’d had my gun,” she says. Though a gun owner with a concealed weapons permit, she was not allowed to bring her gun on campus.

To make the case that Collins would have been utterly safe if only she had her gun is something that no one can assure. Jazz Silva states that she has “seen that responsible gun ownership can create a sense of security. But it requires that a gun owner has extensive training, can ensure their weapons are secured at all times, and is capable of exercising sound judgement at a moment's notice. Unfortunately, this describes a campus police officer and not your average college student” (Silva).

Campus-carry laws restrict students and school officials from being able to be fear free of one another and to learn in a safe environment, because of this the majority of students and school officials do not believe in campus-carry laws. College campuses are already high risk environments, and students and school officials alike seem to agree that college campuses are not the place for guns. Despite providing a minority of students and school officials with a falsified sense of security, firearms should not be permitted on college campuses. College campuses are meant to be sanctuaries for young, bright minds and older, educated minds to connect over studies that will shape the future of America. College campuses are not meant to be abysses for students and school officials to trek in fear because a minority of students and school officials decided to carry with them lethal weapons. Weapons that should not be permitted on America’s sanctuaries, weapons that should not be permitted on America’s college campuses.

Auyero, Javier. "Guns on Campus Make Colleges Less Safe." The New York Times. The New

York Times Company, 31 May 2016. Web. 24 July 2016.

Chan, Ashton. "Which Pistol Goes Best with This Sweatshirt?" The Huffington Post.

TheHuffingtonPost.com, 20 May 2016. Web. 25 July 2016.

Pesta, Abigail. "Texas Passes Campus-Carry Laws, Along With 8 Other States." Teen Vogue.

Condé Nast, 12 July 2016. Web. 24 July 2016.

Sarran-Webster, Emma. "Why Kansas Just Passed a Law to Allow Guns in Classrooms." Teen

Vogue. Condé Nast, 23 Mar. 2016. Web. 24 July 2016.

Silva, Jazz. "Mental Health, Not Mass Shooters, Is the Bigger Problem at Universities." The New

York Times. The New York Times Company, 13 May 2016. Web. 24 July 2016.

Skorton, David, and Glenn Altschuler. "Do We Really Need More Guns on Campus?" (2013):

628-32. Abstract. (n.d.): n. pag. Print.

Smith-Soto, David. "The UCLA Gun Killing - a Reminder That Texas Opens College

Classrooms to Guns August 1." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 13 June 2016. Web. 25 July 2016