Persuasive letter on being able to carry a concealed weapon on college campuses - Essay Example

The process of obtaining a concealed permit is different according to every state’s legislature. It is not an easy process and can take a set amount of time based on the area that the individual is trying to obtain a permit. It requires a thorough background check and there are disqualifying factors such as violent behavior, felonies, and excessive drug use that can keep an irresponsible person from obtaining a concealed permit (Scheb 318). Also, there are rules, which prevent individuals from buying weapons at all.

In most states, you have to be at least 18 years of age to buy rifles and at least 21 to buy a handgun. In addition, there are limitations to the armaments that a person can buy, which again is limited to more thorough background checks if you want to buy deadlier weapons such as fully automatic assault rifles, which are typically reserved only for military and civilian law enforcement organizations. The first and most obvious debate to the issue is that you are taking the student’s right away to protect him or herself.

Under the constitution, citizens of the United States have the right to bear arms. As stated previously, in order to obtain the right to carry a weapon, there are many processes that a person has to go through and if they do not meet the requirements, they are unable to purchase neither a firearm nor a permit. The reason that this was put into the constitution was because during the American Revolution, the British wanted to keep American patriots from being able to defend themselves and put up resistance (Fernandez, and Sarat 25-35).

The key they’re being that they wanted to keep the populous benign and incapable of their own defense. By not allowing concealed carrying for responsible citizens, the government is doing to the population no different than what the British did during the revolutionary war, a war fought for freedom. ‘ In a specific instance, at some schools there are already weapons on campus. For example, North Georgia College and State University is a senior military college and still has an extremely large civilian population.

Because of the highly militaristic nature and tradition of the school, the cadets that attend classes do train with military weapons such as the M16A2, M249B, and M240. It is common to hear gunfire on campus as the cadets train on how to fire and use this weaponry. This is a responsible instance in which military weapons are used on campus and no one has been injured. Another reason as to why there should be weapons on campus is the inherent crime, which surrounds campuses, especially in the city.

Larger universities are like cities within cities; public safety cannot control every single portion of the campus at the same time. Especially in the case of females, they are vulnerable if they are not traveling with someone else. The only defense they can really have is maice and there is nothing that is going to stop someone from coming up with a gun and doing harm to them. There is no way to control criminals from coming onto campus with weapons as has been seen in some events; therefore why would we want to stop students from protecting themselves when criminals are not going to abide by the laws anyway?

As can be seen, it is necessary and a constitutional right by which we are given our freedom to protect