Should Citizens be Permitted to Carry a Concealed Weapon to Their Workplace - Research Paper Example

? Should citizens be permitted to carry a concealed weapon to their workplace (e.g., office, school, construction site)? Eng 215 Strayer Professor: Joyce A.A. Camper Introduction The rising cases of insecurity have often prompted people to carry concealed weapons to their workplaces. Most people carry such weapons in their cars, handbags or even in covered parts of their bodies. While the trend offers immediate and reliable form of self-defense in case of such attacks, it also threatens the safety of the workplaces and other social places that people gather. Lott (2000) explains that the government should therefore develop effective mechanisms of ensuring safety of workplaces and the social places by banning the rising trend. By carrying such weapons as to their workplaces, it becomes a nuisance to public security as well as to their own security due to the fact that human don’t always act rationally and therefore are likely to use the weapons in an inappropriate manner more often that they are very going to need to use the same in the appropriate manner. The government has set in place several mechanisms of ensuring peace and order in the society. Key among such efforts is the institution of a dedicated police hotline service, which responds in time and carries out effective investigation thereby ensuring that the American society is safe enough for its citizens. However, the police service may not always respond promptly in every case. Furthermore, the criminal trend and cases of assault continue to increase thereby placing potentially anybody at risk. For self-protection, most people prefer to have concealed weapons with them in case of an eventuality. Most of those who carry such weapons claim that they do so for self-defense. They thus go with such weapons to their workplaces including offices, schools and construction sites. With the weapons, citizens make the society less safe and social interaction more restrictive. During daily interactions, employees act aggressively to one another. Such acts of aggression arise due to internal organizational wrangles. However, with the concealed weapons, most people opt to use violence to settle such scores thereby harming their colleagues in the process. Such acts of aggression are costly to both the organization and to the respective individuals. The organization loses reproductive person-hours as the wounded individual seeks treatment while the offender risks a possible jail term. The use of violence at workplaces to solve internal wrangles destroys free interpersonal relations thereby slowing the rate of organizational productiveness. Additionally, when citizens carry such weapons to their workplaces they make the society unsafe since the weapons present an amount of danger to other members of the society. Some citizens work as teachers and therefore interact with young unsuspecting members of the society. Through their interactions accidents occur, the damage resulting from the accidents may worsen if the teacher had some concealed weapons with them. There have been several cases of guns accidentally going off thus harming unsuspecting members of the public. The penknives and swords may drop accidentally thereby harming others. Workplaces must always maintain certain safety levels, the law demands that organizations compensate employees who hurt themselves while at the workplace. Such legislations are considerate as the employees are assets to the organization. With concealed weapons, the workplace becomes increasingly dangerous and unfit for productive work. The numerous accidents that ensue thereafter may cause the organization millions of dollars in compensations. By permitting citizens to carry concealed weapons to their workplaces, the government would be making the society susceptible to illegal guns thereby promoting criminal activities. Citizens obtain small firearms from government facilities from where they register both the guns and the bullets. This way, it becomes easier to investigate criminal activities involving the guns. However, with the permit to carry concealed weapons, most citizens would show preference to illegal guns which the government agencies would not investigate effectively owing to the freedom to carry such. This way, the society’s security status degenerates as more criminal gangs increase in the streets. Furthermore, with weapons apprehending criminals will become increasingly difficult since they will opt to resist arrest and use the weapons to instill fear in the security officers (Cukier & Sidel, 2006). Permitting citizens to carry concealed weapons is the surest way of rotting the social fabric thereby causing anarchy in the country. Criminal gangs will take advantage of the provision and stifle the efforts by the country’s security apparatus to create a peaceful and safe society for economic growth. In retrospect, the government should not permit citizens to carry concealed weapons to places of work, besides the numerous social and economic implications they will present to the country the weapons present great danger to the society (May & Jarjoura, 2006). Instead, the government should develop effective mechanisms of maintaining a peaceful and safer society for every citizen. This is achievable through the creation of efficient police units that will attend to every security need in time. Additionally, some civic education to enable the creation of peaceful societies is necessary. The citizens should uphold peaceful coexistence with one another and devise peaceful mechanisms of solving personal differences. This way, the society becomes safe and people will not feel the need to carry concealed weapons to their workplaces. Part two As already identified, the main reason why more American today are finding it necessary to carry weapons is the escalating crime rates and the increasing number of illegal guns in the hands of criminals. However, carrying guns or other forms of concealed weapons is not a solution to the problems as it is likely to lead to anarchy. In this regard, there are better avenues for making the society safer for the individual citizens. Law abiding citizens have felt as if the law does not consider them because it prohibits them from owning a way to protect themselves and their families. Yet, the dame government that fails to allow them to protect themselves has been unable to protect them. As a result, the question is not about the government allowing people to carry concealed weapon but making it unnecessary to carry guns. This would mean ensuring that the criminals don’t have easy access to the guns. The government should focus on eliminating the guns and curbing out the guns in the streets and making the streets safer for the people. Creating order in the public According to DuPont (1997), those who argue that law abiding citizens should be allowed to legally carry concealed weapons in order to protect themselves argue under the illusion that human beings are rational beings. The sad truth is that in most cases and in most circumstances, people act irrationally and do the most irrational things. This is why people should be worried about every person carrying concealed weapons especially deadly weapons such as short guns. A good example can be drawn from the military forces and the homeland security forces where every once in a while a security officer under some circumstances acts irrationally and use their weapons in the way they shouldn’t. Yet, these officers are well trained professionals who have been trained not only on the use of the weapons but also on the ethical and professional use of the weapon. The question would then be how an individual without such training would act if they are allowed to carry weapons. Needless to say, private citizens are more likely to act irrationally with their weapon and thsi woudl lead to everybody being at a higher risk of insecurity (Hemenway, 2006). Even without guns, there are numerous situations where people solve their differences through violence. This is especially so with men and especially in such social situations such as pubs and bars. Considering that most people pass by their favorite pubs on their way home, it is not hard to imagine that these people would more often than not find themselves in pubs while carrying these weapons. This, when combined with the fact that a drunk person has an affected judgment, would therefore mean that they would be more likely to use the weapons not to defend themselves from criminals but to deal with petty social issues. This would definitely lead to unrest in public order. In this sense, restricting gun ownership and making sure that there are no people carrying weapons to their workplace would lead to more public order, which is an advantage to all people. Controlling crime Guns remain a big challenge to security authorities and as the number of deadly guns of all sizes and calibers continue to flock the public, security officers are finding it more difficult to deal with armed criminals. Making guns legal will only make it easier for criminals to have more control and for them to access guns and gun accessories easier (Small Arms Survey, 2007). In this regard, the main advantage of refusing to legalize guns will be that it will be easier for the security forces to deal with criminals and to be able to curb weapons in the streets which could otherwise be used to commit crime against the public. Criminalizing weapons and especially guns will help in aiding police officers and other security authorities to be able to purge out the issue of armed crime. United States of America has so many security forces such as the state police departments, the sheriff departments, the homeland security authorities, the federal bureau of investigations etc. These security authorities are mandated with the prime role of securing the public and it is therefore necessary to allow them to find ways to solve the issue of insecurity. Allowing everyone to carry a weapon around will not make anybody safer and in fact this could only increase the risk of individuals to be harmed. Considering the poor Most people who have been fighting for gun legalization and for the law to allow citizens to carry weapons have completely ignored economic factors surrounding the issue (Hemenway, 2006). Legalizing guns would lead to two major phenomenons which affect the citizens. To begin with, when almost everybody is carrying a concealed weapon, it would become necessary for individuals to carry these weapons. Definably, the concealed weapon of choice would be a gun because it is the easiest to use given the accuracy and efficiency of a gun as well as the fact that the user does not have to be near the opponent. This would lead to a mass consumption of guns and according to simple laws of demand and supply, the costs of guns would shoot up. As a result, what would happen is that only those with money would be able to enjoy the privilege of carrying a gun. In this regard, it would seem that those who can afford to buy a gun would be able to buy security for themselves while those who don’t have the money to afford a gun would not have the privilege. This would be entirely wrong because security is a basic right for every human being and how much an individual is should never have to depend on how much money they have. Conclusion There is a heated debate on whether legalizing guns will make individual be safer. Those who argue for the legalization of guns argue that the individual persons would be allowed to carry a weapon to protect them and complement for where the security authorities are not able to provide for security. On the other hand, there are those who feel that allowing people to carry weapons around would not lead to the public or the individuals being safer from crimes. Allowing the individual people to carry weapons for self defense would only be viable if and only if people are rational beings able to act rationally in all situations and circumstances. Unfortunately, people don’t always act rationally and allowing them to carry dangerous weapons would only make the public more dangerous. Ironically, allowing people to carry weapons would also deteriorate the state of their own security. It is in this regard that it will be necessary to have other ways of implementing the public security. By preventing people from carrying guns, it will be easier for the police and other security authorities to be able to deal with illegal weapons and make the public safer. It will also be a fair way of guaranteeing everyone’s security because the poor may not be able to afford guns, especially considering that the cost of guns may go even higher if guns are legalized. References Cukier, W. & Sidel, V. W. (2006). The global gun epidemic: From Saturday night specials to AK-47s. Westport, Conn. [u.a.: Praeger Security International. DuPont, L. (1997). The Selfish Brain: Learning from Addiction. New York, NY: American Psychiatric Pub. Hemenway, D. (2006). Private Guns, Public Health. Michigan : University of Michigan Press. Lott, J. R. (2000). More guns, less crime: Understanding crime and gun-control laws. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. May, D. C. & Jarjoura, G. R. (2006). Illegal guns in the wrong hands: Patterns of gun acquisition and use among serious juvenile delinquents. Lanham, Md. [u.a.: Univ. Press of America. Small Arms Survey. (2007). Small Arms Survey 2007: Guns and the City. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. Read More