Out of every hundred people walking around in a mall and shopping for groceries, one person has a handgun, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Safety. Walk across campus lines, and only the police can legally possess firearms. Why can't the same responsible citizens outside a university carry them on campus for defense?
Texas passed legislation in 1995 to allow the right to carry with a concealed handgun license, but college campuses are an exception. Concealed carry is aimed to deter shootings and give people the ability to protect themselves from assault, rape, theft and other crimes.
Eleven colleges permit students and faculty the right to carry across the United States, including every public university in Utah since fall 2006, a community college in Virginia for more than five years and Colorado State University for the past 13 years. No incidents involving gun violence, accidental discharge or gun theft have occurred on these campuses since legalizing concealed carry.
A national, non-profit organization, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC), is gaining ground for the right to carry on campus. The group is a largely student-led initiative to get legislation passed within their respective states. The SCCC had their first national conference Aug. 1, 2008 in Washington, D.C. Texas currently has 26 registered campus leaders listed on the SCCC's Web site who are responsible for supporting the cause in their area.
The Brady campaign, a reaction to the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt, opposes the movement and enrolls the support of mostly unsubstantiated claims and biased statistics. Brian Siebel, writing for the Brady Center generalizes, "The school-age years are among the most volatile times in every person's life." From this he concludes that altercations between students would result in gun violence. Prior to the legalization of the right to carry, people thought incidents about stealing parking spots and traffic accidents would escalate if people held guns.
Wild west shootouts remained a thing of the past and violent crime rates dropped. Texans with concealed handgun licenses are 14 times less likely than those without them to commit a crime and five times less likely to commit a violent crime, according to a report released by the Texas Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Census Bureau in 2000.
States that allow the right to carry have lower crime rates than the other states. According to a FBI study in 2006, rates were lower for violent crime by 26 percent, murder 31 percent, robbery 51 percent and aggravated assault 15 percent.
Places with tight gun control laws fare the worst. Washington D.C. implemented some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the U.S. in 1976. The result was a 134 percent increase in the murder rate through 1996, according to Gary Kleck and the FBI Uniform Crime Statistics. From the same data source, Maryland, a self-proclaimed tough state on gun control, was No. 1 in the nation for robberies and number four for violent crime and murder in 2000.
In opposition, the Brady campaign cited Hemenway Miller and Henry Wechsler findings that students were more likely to own a gun if they were engaged in multiple dangerous activities, including binge drinking, arrest for a DUI and vandalizing property.
By current law, these students already legally can own guns and "most" do if the figures are right. The possession of guns by these dangerous individuals is not currently much of a problem, as can be seen by the lack of incidents of drunk or under-the-influence college shooters.
In addition, a DWI is a Class B misdemeanor, and any Class A or B misdemeanor conviction within the last five years disqualifies a person from obtaining a concealed handgun license. This argument ignores that it is illegal to carry a concealed handgun when under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
The April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech shooting that left 32 students and faculty dead lasted for more than 9 minutes, until the murderer decided he was finished. According to the FBI's inquiry, "In the Line of Fire: Violence Against Law Enforcement," the majority of shootouts last less than 10 seconds.
Concealed handgun holders are trained in self-defense to respond to situations where there is a threat of grave bodily harm or immediate danger to their life. People should have a right to be able to defend themselves regardless whether they are on campus or not.
For more information, visit concealedcampus.org.
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