Should Firearms Be Allowed In Schools - Research Paper Example

Should Firearms Be Allowed In Schools? Students in colleges and campuses should be allowed to carry guns with them to guarantee their safety. Guns are the safest way of ensuring that each and every student is capable of protecting himself or herself in case he or she is faced with a security threat within the college premises. This is in fact necessary during these uncertain times when the contemporary world is facing high levels of crime and threats from terrorist groups. Terrorists and other organized crime gangs may target campuses due to the high probability of succeeding in killing or harming large numbers of people, who are otherwise vulnerable as they only depend on the institutions to provide security, which may not be sufficient enough to monitor movements from and to the campuses especially due to the lack of standardized school uniforms. This makes it possible for intruders to access the premises and eventually mingle with unsuspecting students even in places such as dormitories, which are supposed to be out of bounds to strangers and other unauthorized persons (Newman, 2004). Furthermore, the ratio of security officers to civilians is never adequate to the extent of guaranteeing personal security to every individual unless every person undertakes to incur the expenditure of hiring personal body guards, who sometimes may turn out to be a bother as there is no way it would work if each and every student was accompanied by such guards to their lecture halls (Kopel, 2002). If this proposition is made legal, a methodology of ensuring compliance with the rules of handling guns would be brought forward in addition to constant evaluation on a student’s conduct to ensure that only those with sound and sober minds are allowed the privilege so as to avoid unethical behavior. If police officers, qualified civilians and other government security agencies can be entrusted to carrying guns, students can also be trained for example by introducing gun handling and usage lessons so as to make them responsible and aware of the consequences of not following laid down rules and regulations. The Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, shootings should be considered as a point of reference by those who may be misinformed on the vulnerability of college students. According to reports, an unknown armed person gained access to the institution on the 16th April 2007. Apparently, the said person embarked on a shooting spree whereby he killed two students in one of the dormitories and less than three hours later, he shot and killed 30 others in a classroom after which he committed suicide bringing the total number of deaths to 33, an occurrence that was termed as, “the deadliest shooting rampage in the American history (Hauser & O’Connor, 2007).” If students were allowed to carry guns, there is a high probability that the number of victims would have been lower based on the fact that they would have used their weapons to overpower and probably kill the shooter before he could cause more damage as he did. On the contrary, most of the students tried to escape through the windows while others slept on the floor as a cover as there was no way they could have challenged the shooter. College students especially females should be allowed to carry guns as a measure to control the ever increasing rate of sexual assault both by acquaintances and unknown assailers. Women are generally considered to be weak in terms of defense especially when challenged by fellow men, who are considered to be more masculine thereby energetic. According to 2008 reports, more than 3000 college students are allegedly sexually assaulted within the institutions on yearly basis. Indeed, the same reports indicate that of all college men interviewed, 60% admitted that they would rape their fellow female friends under any circumstances deemed justifiable to them (Burnet, 2009). A woman needs protection and this has not been forthcoming in most of the colleges whereby culprits are allowed to go scot-free due to lack of substantial evidence whereas others are expelled from college only to return later after reapplying. Rapists belong to the prisons but that not withstanding, prevention is always better than cure. With a gun, a female student would be in a position to defend her self by intimidating the rapist, not necessarily shooting them. It may be worth noting that majority of these rapes occur between people who are well known to each other and therefore, the probability of shooting occurring may be low (Burnet, 2009). Furthermore, these students are only out to have pleasure and as such, they cannot be considered to be murders and therefore, even if the assailants are armed i.e. since the paper is advocating for the carrying of guns by both males and females, they will possibly be forced to retreat at the first sight of a gun. Failure to do so then would provide the female with a reasonable ground to shoot the rapist as a way of disabling him from committing the offence. In the long run, this would go a long way in reducing teenage pregnancies and abortions as well as the possibilities of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases. On the other hand, allowing college students to carry guns may inhibit the smooth running of the institutions. This is due to the fact that it may not be possible to foretell on someone’s state of mind at a given time. In this context, it may be important to note that college students are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior such as alcohol and drug abuse, which may not be observed at the time they are permitted to carry the fire arms. It is a well known fact that such substances have the capacity to impair judgment even in those who are perceived to be of the highest moral standing in the society (Colby, 2004). Consequently, such impaired judgment may promote careless behavior as well as lack of emotional intelligence necessary in settling minor disputes and quarrels. As for now, institutions are working hard to reduce cases of violence among students and there is a high possibility that the administrations will be subjected to a higher level of violence, which will now involve guns (Duggan, 2010). Apparently, the damage that a person can cause while un-armed cannot be compared to that, which can be caused by a single gun shot. In addition, there is a possibility that some of the students carrying guns may suffer from unknown mental imbalances or depression resulting to them committing unexpected shootings. One of the major documented cases of such an occurrence is the California University shootings of July 1976. Although the perpetrator was not a student, he was working as a librarian in the institution meaning that he was a trusted person within that fraternity. However, no person knew that he had mental illness though his immediate motive for killing 7 people was motivated by the thought that his wife was featuring in pornographic movies (Newman, 2004). In the contemporary world, there are numerous issues that can affect the behavior of a young student, which might influence his or her interaction with his environment. Such issues include high rates of divorce, poverty, discrimination on the basis of race, class or ethnicity among others, which have the potential of encouraging hatred towards the society. It is for this reason that the institutions cannot afford to entrust their students with fire arms as this would be a recipe for a rise in murder cases in colleges. Opponents of such a proposition argue that allowing students to carry guns would interfere with the concentration of those students who are wary of weapons. Apparently, there are people who are uncomfortable sharing the same environment with gun handlers apart from security officers based on the fact that they feel insecure as they cannot trust them to behave in a predetermined manner. This may result to the underperformance of such students since academic excellence highly correlates with friendly learning environments. Lecturers would also have to contend with the fact that their students are armed and this may hinder the process of maintaining order and discipline in the institutions. In this context, the lecturers would have to observe utmost care whenever they are apprehending their students so as to lower the chances of there being a confrontation, which might result to the students carrying grudge against them. Students are known to despise those lecturers who award few marks and this may be a motivation factor towards student lecturer conflict (Kopel, 2002). The assertion that catastrophes such as that of Virginia tech massacre could have been minimized if only the students had guns is a debatable point. However true it might be, it is also necessary to point out that the number of casualties could have been even higher than what was recorded. This is due to the fact that the students could have definitely embarked on a dangerous mission to suppress the shooter but out of panic, most of them would have shot blindly at the target and in the process end up hurting their fellow students. Apparently, it is easier to deal with one shooter as opposed to a hundred shooters acting out of desperation and panicking (Duggan, 2010). Bibliography Burnet, A. (2009). How Date Rape is communicated on Campus. Journal of Applied Communication Research, Vol. 4(6): 112-127 Colby, S. (2004). Adolescents, Alcohol, and Substance Abuse, the Guilford Press Duggan, M. (2010). More Guns, More Crime. Journal of Political economy, Vol. 109 (5): 100-114 Hauser, C., O’Connor, A. (2007). ‘Virginia Tech Shooting Leaves 33 Dead.’ The New York Times [Online] 16 April. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/us/16cnd-shooting.html (Accessed: 17 May 2011) Kopel, D. (2002). Gun Control and Gun Rights, NYU Press Newman, K. (2004). Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings. NY: Basic Books Read More