Concealed Carry on Campus is a Risky Gamble

On July 9, 2015 the Daily Texan published an article by Noah Horwitz titled Without Reasonable Precedent, Campus Carry is a Risky Gamble for Texas Universities. This article raises concern about Texas legalizing concealed carry on campus and the consequences that Universities might face because of this law. The author explains that only six other states have proceeded to pass the law to allow concealed handguns to be carried on campus and none of these states compare to the size of Texas or have universities as large as those in Texas. This law has not been tested on a large scale and has been protested by students, administration and professors. The author’s intended audience for this article is for college students and faculty on Texas campuses who have expressed their concern for this law and think it could potentially hurt student’s safety more than help. The Texas Legislative thinks this law will provide a safer environment for students as well as prevent massacres like the incident on UT campus by Charles Whitman. This law will not prevent people who are evil with a planned intention to hurt someone, therefore will not lead to more massacres, but could lead to an increase in smaller incidents. I strongly agree with the author’s article and opinion about disagreeing with legalizing concealed carry on campus. I feel that students carrying a gun on campus will not prevent incidents from happening but more so provoke them. College students have one of the highest suicide rates compared to other age groups and are prone to stress so providing them with easy access to firearms could lead to higher increase in these incidents. There are evil people in this world and allowing anyone to carry a handgun makes it a higher possibility for someone to be harmed when encountered in an altercation. This author provides credible information in their article considering they have embedded links from other sources supporting their argument and are a government senior that is a senior associate editor which makes them a reliable author for this topic.