Campus Carry Vs. Carrying in Businesses

Campus Carry Vs. Carrying in Businesses

        When a young adult discusses college or furthering their education, one of the biggest complaints is the cost. One of the most expensive parts of going to a four-year university is tuition. Tuition gets paid directly to the university. Therefore by definition, a University is a business. We pay the university for a service, education. If we consider a university to be a business, then we should treat it with the same respect as a business, requiring the right to carry a firearm, unless the proper signage is posted stating that it is “unlawful” to carry a firearm.

        ProCon.org has a very informative article outlining the pros and cons of allowing licensed citizens to carry a firearm. The first argument discusses the idea of weather carrying a handgun increases or decreases crime and violence. In the ‘con’ argument it explains that states that passed “Shall-Issue” laws between the years of 1977 and 2010, saw a two percent increase in the murder rate. On the contrary, however, in the ‘pro’ argument, political commentator, John R. Lott calculated that 1,570 murders could have been prevented between the years of 1977 and 1992 if concealed carry had been made legal. While both statistics are correct and informative, we can’t guarantee that they are a direct effect of concealed carry licenses being made legal or illegal.  How can we compare this to a university? RT.com says that in 2015 there were a total of 52 school shootings. Of those 52, 21 of them were on college campuses. Suicides account for six of the incidents, and in thirteen of the attacks no one was hit by a bullet. How many of these incidents could have been prevented by a licensed citizen carrying a gun? John Lott again makes a statement regarding the idea that gun free zones do not deter criminals from breaking the law by stating, “If the media more regularly reported when a shooting occurs in a gun-free zone, more people would realize that gun-control laws don’t deter criminals who are looking for select targets where people can’t fight back.” This argument leads into the next “pro/con” argument. Procon.org says that concealed carry application requirements and background checks do not prevent criminals from acquiring weapons. A criminal, by definition, is a person who breaks the law. A person already breaking the law is less likely to adhere to gun-free zone requirements. Several businesses, such as Buffalo Wild Wings and AMC Theaters do not allow licensed citizens to carry a gun weather it is concealed or open. For this to be legal and constitutional, the company must post a sign that says that it is unlawful to carry on the premises of the company. That sign is called a 30.06 or a 30.07. The 30.06 prevents citizens from concealing a firearm, but does not allow the company to prohibit open carry. The 30.07 prohibits any firearms on the premises weather it be open or concealed. There are several requirements that the sign must meet; you have to pay for the correct sign. You can purchase these signs in the state of Texas from StateOfTexasCHL.com. Purchasing the sign insures that you have the correct verbiage on the sign, because without the correct verbiage the sign becomes null and the companies can no longer prevent citizens from carrying a weapon into their business. If we require businesses to have this sign posted on the doors of businesses, then we should require universities to do the same considering by definition it is a business.  

        Looking at the similarities and differences in Open Carry and Campus carry we can see that they are not identical and they vary from campus to campus. The University of Texas of the Permian Basin illustrates the similarities and differences quite nicely. The first, obvious, similarity is the fact that the person who wishes to carry a gun must be licensed, and in order to be licensed you must be 21 years of age. The main difference is that Open carry is not permitted on a college campus, however campus carry means you can carry a gun as long as it is concealed. Many people argue that college students who drink are more likely to engage in dangerous behavior, and yes this is true. However the law still states that it is illegal to carry a firearm while intoxicated. We previously discussed how most people who are licensed to carry a gun are law-abiding citizens and are less likely to break these laws.

There is no way to determine how many students have concealed handgun licenses. There is also no way to tell if a student is carrying a concealed gun with out a proper license. Just like we can’t tell who has possession of illegal drugs or who is in possession of alcohol while not being of the legal age. The only way we would know if someone had illegal substances, weather it is a gun, drugs, or alcohol, is if we searched their belongings and we would need a probable cause and a warrant to do so. To absolutely insure that no one had a gun at all we would have to search each and every student and faculty and staff member every day they came on to campus and that is unreasonable. Therefore to protect ourselves from criminals who intentionally break the law, we should be allowed to carry a firearm on campus with the proper license. If a university wants to make their campus a gun free zone, they should be required to purchase the proper signage and have it posted on their buildings just like every other business in the United States. This should be a standard for universities considering we can consider them businesses.