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Should Guns Be Allowed on College Campuses?

Should Guns Be Allowed on College Campuses?
3/26/2013
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Carly Gerber

Every time I learn about a school shooting, I feel less safe at my university – my paranoia has become so severe that I won’t study in the library because this location has been a target in several shootings – and I’ve often wondered what could be done to prevent incidents like this from occurring again. With the recent situation at UCF still fresh in our minds, let’s discuss: Would allowing guns on campus make a difference? Some may think so while others are very much opposed.

Some state legislatures feel that allowing students to carry concealed firearms on campus will ease the worry of students like me. They say it’s an extension of a person’s constitutional right to protect oneself, yet higher education institutions that are in states that want students to be allowed to have a handgun do not agree with their lawmakers. (Texas and Kansas, for example, are two states whose lawmakers want to allow firearms on campus, while the schools within their borders want quite the opposite.) According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, there are 20 states that ban concealed weapons on campus, five states that allow concealed weapons at higher education institutions, 24 states that allow schools to set their own policies and several other campuses are debating whether or not to allow concealed firearms.

At the end of the day, people kill people, so I don’t believe guns are the real issue. Let me know your views about guns on campus: Would you feel safer or less safe if your student body and faculty were allowed to carry handguns?

Carly Gerber is majoring in journalism at Columbia College Chicago. She loves fashion and hopes to cover the topic for a Chicago-area magazine. In her free time, she focuses on her blog, loves making jewelry and spending time on Pinterest and Pose. She hopes to use this blog to guide and relate to its followers: college students like herself!

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