On April 20, 1999, two high school students traipsed through the halls of Columbine High School, mercilessly killing 12 of their classmates and one teacher before taking their own lives.
Eight years later, a single man became solely responsible for the death of 32 college students in wake of a shooting rampage on the Virginia Tech campus. Both involved students enrolled at the respective schools carrying loaded guns in plain sight across educational property, both of which are supposed to be “gun free zones.”
Now, the state of Texas wants to pass a law allowing college students to carry a concealed gun on campus. The reason? Lawmakers believe it will make college campuses safer for students, giving them a way to defend themselves in case of a Columbine or Virginia Tech-related incident.
Some students agree, saying campus police cannot always be in the right place at the right time. Female students can feel protected walking across lush green lawns during later hours.
Students enter college with a newfound sense of freedom. What happens to this freedom, though, when they are constantly questioning if their classmate has a loaded gun on them? What if a professor gives a student with a loaded gun a failing grade? Should they have to worry about an over-emotional student killing them in front of the class? Are we to be subjected to living in a world of fear at the thought that our chemistry lab partner could misfire a gun, having received no formal training in regards to owning a firearm?
Can you imagine the first time someone enters a fraternity house with a gun? Throw some beers into the mix and brawls within the Greek system are taken to a whole new level.
While the law calls for a concealed carry policy, just the thought of someone sitting next to me in the cafeteria with a deadly weapon would make me lose my appetite. It’s hard to decide which is more acceptable: an open-carry policy or a concealed policy. Would you want to know if your best friend in class was carrying a gun? Or would you be more afraid at the chance of seeing the black killing machine casually slung into a back pocket?
People defending the law cite the Virginia Tech massacre as proof that a student being allowed to carry guns is a legitimate idea, saying fewer students would have killed had they been able to defend themselves. However, what is there to prove that even more students wouldn’t have lost their lives in the chaos of multiple people firing off shots in every direction?
Parents send their children to colleges across the country to receive an education. No parent should have to live in fear of their child being the next victim of a school shooting whether it be from a student meaning to carry a gun or a mistake made by a student abiding by the concealed carry law on campus.
Nicole Jacobsen is a junior journalism and advertising double major. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].
