Campus Carry Vs. Carrying in Businesses

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An Educator, John M. Crisp, explained in an op-ed piece that a UT professor decided to quit teaching due to the “Increased risk of the concealed carry-law.” In Crisp’s article, he made many claims about universities, mass shootings, and gun control that has us readers believe that more gun laws and restrictions would be the appropriate answer to this problem. When the question arises regarding the sheer number of deaths caused by guns, we often are told the total number. In 2013 there were 33,878 deaths that resulted from firearms. What many news sources fail to mention is the various types of gun related deaths. Of those 33,878 deaths, 11,208 were firearm-related homicides, 21,175 were suicides, and 505 were accidents. It is often left out that corrections researchers like Grant Duwe have discovered that the number of mass murders as a percentage of the population has actually decreased in the last 20 years, and only two of the 11 highest rates occurred within the last eight years. With this information, can we even make sweeping declarations like ‘campus carry increases the risk on college campuses’? As if this information were not enough, lets look at the facts about who is carrying a gun. We know that the laws state that you must be 21 years of age to obtain a concealed carry license. In 2013 there were 50,869 convictions. Of those convictions only 158 were CHL holders, (.31 percent) therefore the CHL holders are far less likely to be involved in crimes. This simply just reiterates the fact that people licensed to carry a gun are far less likely break the law. It is often used as a form of awareness to people who are thinking about engaging in firearm related crimes, but Dennis McCuistion, explains that a potential shooter may think twice before coming on our campus, because they don’t know who is armed and who is not.

Many of these arguments have been made about both open carry and campus carry. Questions like ‘Does it make us safer?’ ‘Does it increase the risk of gun related violence?’ and claims like ‘Allowing students to carry a gun on campus increases the risk of a shooting to occur’ creates arguments and one-sided news to be spread. These things need to be unified and all of the facts need to be reported. We, as a nation, need to look at how we can consolidate our gun laws and policies. To start we need to look at the idea of considering universities as businesses and holding them to the same standard as businesses when it comes to gun control laws. The laws are similar for both universities and businesses in the state of Texas. Requiring universities to be upheld to the same standards for prohibiting guns on their campus, as businesses would allow the university to make their own decision as to if they want to allow students and professors to carry firearms on their campus. This gives each individual university to have discussions with the students and professors, and allows the students and professor to feel they have a say in their personal safety concerns. Many people would argue that making universities purchase the signs would cost them too much money. The signs cost about $100 each, and they only have to post them only on the buildings they want to be gun free zones. The argument can be made that if we consider it a business for gun laws we should require it to follow all business related laws. However, using the guidelines that businesses use for gun laws makes a solid foundation ensuring that there is no room for discussion or grey area that may arise. This, again, allows universities to make their own individual decisions to allow campus carry or not.

Cited sources:

http://concealedguns.procon.org

https://www.rt.com/usa/318169-school-shootings-statistics-year/

http://www.utpb.edu/campus-life/campus-carry/facts-about-campus-carry

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2015/10/23/pro-con-should-college-campuses-restrict-concealed-weapons

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