Animal House To Big Brother Student Privacy Analysis

While the debate and argument over the carry on campus law continues, more and more concerns are surfacing about the jeopardy it could put our nation in. Are students even mature enough for the handling of weapons? Students are not to be trusted with guns and college campus should stay a gun-free zone. Carrying a gun in general requires responsibility that people of a young age sometimes tend not to have. The handling a firearm and a lack of responsibility within a person can be a very dangerous situation. Judgement and maturity of such a young group are things to consider when thinking about the carry on campus law and a student’s capability to make smart choices when handling a weapon can’t be trusted.

Sitting through an hour-long lecture or waiting in line to speak with financial aid are some examples of an average day on campus. It is during these times when students are least expecting tragedy to strike. A student may hear a loud noise and think nothing of it until they realize that noise was the sound of a shooting rampage that has reached their area and by that time it’s usually too late. Campus safety is everyone’s responsibility and remaining on alert is the only way to ensure less people are victimized. One of the first, and most memorable, attacks happened on August 1, 1966. Charles Whitman, a former marine, took rifles and other weapons to the observation deck atop the Main Building tower at The University of Texas- Austin, then randomly opened fire on the surrounding campus and streets. Over the next 96 minutes, far longer than the average active shooter attack, he shot and killed fifteen people. Included in the death toll was one unborn child, and injured thirty-one others. The incident ended when police reached Whitman and shot him dead. During this event, civilians played a vital role in assisting first responders in the take down of Whitman and Allen Crum, a 40-year-old bookstore manager and retired Air Force tail gunner, accompanied police up the tower in pursuit of Whitman. While Crum was armed, it solely because officers handed him a firearm to assist in Whitman’s take down.

A major issue in the United States is gun control. Due to multiple mass shootings in schools and public areas, restrictions regarding guns have been implemented across the United States. Andrew Parks, a student at The University of Alabama, wrote an article against gun restrictions. His article, “The University should allow concealed carry,” supports the idea of college campuses like The University of Alabama, allowing students to conceal carry firearms. In an article written by Jennie Kushner, the opinions of students on the University of Alabama’s Police Department’s gun policy are presented. The safety of student body relies on the students’ feeling safe. That safety comes from less gun control laws and policies on campus. Each of the articles stated provides information against gun control in different ways.

Dear Mortimer I am writing this paper to persuade you to rethink your position concerning the preemption of firearms regulation regarding college campuses. All over the world violence occurs when we least expect it. As the human race evolves, so does the technology we use. We have acquired the ability to kill a man without being in his general vicinity. With just the slight movement of my finger I can end someone’s life. One small confrontation could lead to a terrible travesty. In the United States alone, we have seen many shootings in educational buildings from the students themselves. When you put guns in the hands of students, you are asking for death. People may say it adds protection to people wearing guns, but what about the people without them? I strongly believe that if this bill is allowed to continue we be seeing a large number of shooting in buildings of education, which is unacceptable. One small miscommunication between two armed students could start a firefight.

Concealed carry and college campuses are two major topics currently in the media, yet these two topics are rarely used in unison, until now. The topic of whether or not concealed carry should be allowed on college campuses is a now mainstream debate with multiple views and numerous differentiating opinions. Many of the general public question if campus police is capable enough to protect a university’s enormous student body? Another commonly discussed issue is if concealed handguns actually do deter crime, and if they are capable of aiding in stopping a mass shooting spree? Or if guns on campus, carried by fellow classmates would make students as a whole feel more cautious or on the opposing hand make students feel more secure with guns carried on campus? If guns are allowed on campus, how will this affect a growing student’s ideology? These questions and many more are highly spoken of in our social media based generation, the answers to these questions help to improve our knowledge on this debate of concealed carry on college campuses, which will lead us to form our own individual opinions on this debate topic based on the facts and evidence presented.

This same technique is used later in the article to emphasize the fact that many college students use mind altering substances such as drugs and alcohol; and that adding firearms, concealed or not, would add a new variable to possible suicides and intra-student violence. In addition to all of these statistics, the author also uses reason to make the point that college classrooms are places where you should be able to speak freely and without fear of possible retaliation. The author feels that if students do not know who may or may not have a concealed weapon on them, they may be less likely to speak their mind and learn all that they can.

It would be wrong to say violence ends when you turn the television off or act as if injustice didn’t exist anymore, but if you reflect back on 2016 so far, one of the biggest topics that often dominates the news and blogosphere concerned the high frequency of assaults on college campuses around the country. In the place where many young adults begin to learn who they are and who they want to be while enjoying a comfortable freedom and safety among their peers discovered freedom and safety could not always be guaranteed.

With backpacks in tow and pencils in hand, college students crisscross campus with stress of acing the test, hardly thinking about their safety. This was the case on a clear Tuesday at the University of Texas on September 28th, 2010. Students fled from a mask gunman carrying an AK-47 and shooting randomly around campus. Nineteen-year-old Colton Tooley, wearing a black mask, eventually killed himself in the library. Remarkably, no one else was injured or killed. (MSNBC) This was not the case in 1966 when 16 people where killed with 32 injured by a gunman in the UT clock tower. The debate still wages on to allow concealed guns to be carried on college campus in Texas despite a recent bill that failed to pass. The US Constitutional Second

According to the NCSL, National Conference of State Legislatures “Over the last five years, campus safety legislation has been a hot issue across the country”. Authors like Jazz Silva are standing up for student’s rights that some State Legislatures might not care about. Not only are weapons dangerous but it is unsafe to students who may struggle with mental health issues. College campuses are safer than the communities that surround them. The University of Louisiana system states “93% of the violence against students occurs off campus.” Allowing guns on campus would lead to an escalation in violence, can lead to an increased number of suicides by college students, and the possibility that a weapon can go off by accident.

Third, any campus that does not allow students and faculty to protect themselves, violates their constitutional right to do so and leaves their institution open to litigation in the event that a crime is committed against a student or faculty member while on campus.

Situations like the Virginia Tech incident and the Colombine massacre happened because people with guns found places where they knew nobody else would be able to shoot back. Only police can respond at that point and by the time police arrive to settle the situation, many lives have already been lost. Allowing more people like students and staff access to concealed firearms on school campuses, the magnet that pulls criminals towards places like schools would be detached. Charlie Collins, a Republican state legislator who wrote the campus concealed-carry bill said, "This has been a bad year for campus killings, and it's a problem that's not going away," he said. "One thing that can help reduce it, and help save the lives of our loved ones on college campuses, is eliminating the magnets that exist for these crazy killers." (Collins and

“Colleges and universities occupy a special place in American society. They are much more than a series of buildings and collection of individuals. Instead, they are dynamic living and learning environments where individuals with varying levels of maturity interact, often under stressful circumstances. While recognizing the right of responsible individuals to possess firearms under other circumstances, the unique characteristics of a university campus make the presence of firearms problematic. The shootings that have occurred in recent years at US colleges and universities have generated passionate debate about how best to prevent such violence and whether persons should be allowed to carry concealed guns on campuses. Experts believe there is no credible evidence that students or staff carrying guns would reduce crime. In fact, research has shown that the brains of most college students have not fully developed regarding impulse control and judgment” (Dickerson). Therefore, guns should not be allowed on college campuses because it would lead to an escalation in violent crime, distract from the learning environment, and lead to accidental discharge incidents.

In the article “Universities are Right to Crack Down on Speech and Behavior,” Eric Posner uses science, logic, reason, and morality to challenge the idea that college students are mature young adults who deserve the right to control their own behavior and to exercise unfettered free speech on campus. Furthermore, Posner contends that speech and sex codes have not always been lax but they changed drastically in the 1960s in response to the circumstances of the era. Consequently, the changes have brought about unwelcome freedoms that students themselves are currently rejecting. According to Posner, both parents and students agree that it’s time to for college administrators to resume a more conventional role in managing the speech and behavior

Safety is a tremendous issue on college campuses, and additional procedures need to be taken to prevent crimes from happening. When walking onto a college campus as a young adult, people get a rush of the unknown. The unknown could be going to college parties and late night study groups. College should be like any high school or elementary school and have better security measures to protect their students. The reasons we need these extra steps are to prevent violence, give students a sense of security, and monitor visitors on campus.

Public schools in Demarest, New Jersey allow live camera feed from their schools to go directly to the police department, reportedly making students feel extremely uncomfortable. According to Mr. David Rapp, “When word got out that administrators at Seaholm and Groves high school were going to purchase cameras… A band of students protested, saying that it is costly and promoted an atmosphere of distrust…” (David). In other words, students felt that the school was using the budget for an unnecessary purchase to feel more “Secure” when security had not been an issue that required that type of response. Privacy is more important than security in schools because it allows students to feel trusted, builds a sense of responsibility, and promotes an enjoyable atmosphere.