On Campus Concealed Carry

Negative Case Contention 1: Concealed weapons permission is unnecessary on campus. Although many point to such incidents as the Virginia Tech shootings to justify the need for concealed weapons, most college campuses are relatively safe compared to other areas in the United States. In 2002, the Justice Department discovered that crime on campus is 20% lower than the national average for individuals of the same age category as college students, and that 93% of the violence that occurs against students takes place off campus. (Source: http://www.bradycampaign.org...). This means that, as a whole, students are more while they reside on campus than they are in the outside world. This has two impacts. First, it demonstrates that concealed carry laws are absolutely unnecessary on campus because the crime rate is extremely low. Since there is no need to solve a problem that does not exist, concealed carry permits should not be extended to the campus. Second, it actually demonstrates that concealed carry laws have an increase in crime; most college campuses are safe without the concealed carry provision, but the outside world, which permits concealed carry, is not as safe as college campuses are. This means that concealed carry provisions may be the reason that crime is higher in the outside world, so increasing the number of guns on campus could potentially replicate the disaster. Gary Kleck, a gun-carrying advocate, concedes, "Both gun carrying and gun violence are thus phenomena almost entirely confined to the world outside schools." Contention 2: Crime would increase on campus. Students who own guns are more likely to be mentally unstable and dangerous than their nonviolent peers. While the college rates for illicit drug use, alcohol abuse, and mental instability is high, studies have shown that individuals who are prone to carrying guns on campus are likely to be more involved in such debauchery than the average student. Two studies of college students discovered, for example, that students with guns more likely to engaged in such risky behaviors as binge drinking, use of crack and cocaine, having DUIs, vandalizing property, and clashing with the police. (Source: http://www.bradycampaign.org...). This means that the students who will actually benefit from the law will be those prone to felonious behavior. Given that most students will not carry guns, and that the students who do possess them will not possess the proper mental faculties to rationally prevent themselves from committing crimes, and that these students are more likely to engage in risky, illegal behavior than the average non-gun carrying college student, crimes on campus will be much easier to commit than they were previously. This means that giving risk-prone students access to weapons could potentially increase violence and other felonies on campus. Since this violates the rights of all, this is a reason to reject the gun laws. Contention 3: Concealed weapons would detract from the educational environment of the school. Given that the mission of colleges is to provide a safe, comfortable environment for a student to obtain an education, and that guns create an aura of fear on campus, permitting concealed weapons on campus would foster mistrust and detract from a student's ability to gain an education. Rather than proving that the campus is safe, the students at a college would attempt to minimize interactions with other students for fear of inciting them to emotional violence. A study conducted to determine the fear of the dissemination of guns discovered that 71% of people would feel threatened by the increase of guns in their community, and that 85% of non-gun owners were opposed to the spread of guns because they felt that it would foster mistrust and lessen their security. (Source: http://www.bradycampaign.org...) This increase in fear would decrease educational freedom by minimizing educational interactions, so concealed weapons should not be permitted on campus. Contention 4: Increasing the number of guns on campus could cause confusion and thus foster a greater loss of life. Consider the following hypothetical scenario: A shooter enters campus and threatens a student, who proceeds to pull out a weapon of his own to confront the aggressor. Students nearby also begin to arm themselves and enter the ensuing fray because they feel that their friends are in danger (we cannot assume that students will only arm themselves against the shooter.) By the time the police arrives, the officers can never reliably know which student instigated the conflict, which students are actually dangerous, and which students were trying to defend themselves. This scenario demonstrates the fact that increasing the number of guns on campus would generate confusion and could cause police officers to threaten even the innocent gun-wielders simply because it would be impossible to identify the actual threat. However, if only one shooter had been armed, the police could easily identify the individual and arrest him, thus minimizing the likelihood of his escape and decreasing the potential loss of life. So, because concealed weapons are unnecessary and detrimental to safety and security, you should negate. Rebuttals First, he mentions Virginia Tech and Columbine as reasons that guns should be permitted on campus. While these incidents were horrific, the reason that the public knows about them is that they are unique. The media does not cover every day shootings in the poor downtown areas because these are expected to happen, while crimes on campus are often covered because the stories are unique and sensational. This means that although he can provide you with a few specific, well-known incidents, we should prefer my statistics in the first contention that explain that most campuses are safer than other areas of the United States, meaning that while a few incidents do occur, on the whole, concealed weapons are unnecessary. Moreover, you can cross-apply my fourth contention about confusion here, because the incidents would have been magnified if some students had engaged the shooters in a conflict. Finally, this problem does not require guns to solve; more incidents can be prevented by increasing the amount of police security and support for students on campus (directly solves his "police" argument.) In his second point, he mentions that some campuses with permits have not had any major incidents. First, this could be explained by the fact that most college students do not wish to own guns, and that they cannot have such permits anyways because they need to be 21, so the prevalence of guns on campus is probably very slim. Second, this is empirically false as there have been over 1,400 cases in the state of Florida alone in which CCW permit holders have conducted violent felonies. (Source: http://www.bradycampaign.org...) For example: Tucson, Arizona, October 29, 2002. Robert Flores, Jr. shot and killed three professors, and then himself, in a rampage at the University of Arizona School of Nursing, where he was a failing student. Reportedly, he had told classmates about a year before that he had obtained a CCW permit. Finally, he claims that only those individuals who could carry weapons elsewhere would be permitted to have weapons on campus. Turn this against him because most students across the nation cannot obtain concealed weapons permits until the age of 21, meaning that the majority of college students could not even defend themselves in the case of a violent felony anyways. Second, this increases the likelihood of felonies as individuals outside of campus with permits would be able to safely roam onto campus with their weapons, meaning that they could easily use them against students. Thus, negate and reject concealed carry permits.