A Stricter and Longer Process to Gun Ownership to Prevent Gun Violence in College Campuses

The world seems to be changing faster than we can keep up with it. The youth of today is much more knowledgeable about drugs, sex and weapons than ever before. The second amendment of the United States Bill of Rights protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Does this mean that guns should be allowed on college campuses? I do not believe so, rather people should work on keeping them off the campuses.

Police officers and those in the military are usually put through extensive training just to be certified to use a gun. Even after all the training, sometimes their aim is off or the gun misfires, Innocent people can get in the way of their real target. There are also times when a person may be seen as a threat needed to be stopped, even though they are not. Students, especially, will use any circumstance as self-defense to pull out their gun. An excuse to use guns may be for protection or retaliation, for instance if a fight breaks out or because of an unsatisfactory grade. If guns are necessary, it should be limited to trained professionals, although they still pose a risk.

If they are allowed to people are more likely to carry and bring their weapons to campuses. The age requirement to own a gun in most states is 21, which is an age people turn in college. I think that legislation should be changed to raise the age limit to an older population, around 25 or 30. This does not fully ensure that students will not own guns, since a portion of college students will still be in school at these ages, but the percentage will be reduced. Similar to drinking alcohol, there are college students who will acquire weapons regardless of the age restriction by law. The solution is not to allow weapons on campus, but to enforce the regulations of not having those weapons.

Gun violence in schools and colleges happens infrequently, but it is a tragedy that people should work to prevent all together. People might not be entirely able to keep gun violence out of schools and universities, but the way to limit these tragedies from occurring more often is not to add more guns into the equation. It is smarter to remove guns and all weapons out of the equation, which would logically decrease the likelihood of gun violence. Furthermore, I think there should be a longer and more intense process in order to own a gun, to prevent them from entering the wrong hands.

If it were up to my preference, no guns would be allowed anywhere, including college campuses, except in the military and by the police force. Although the right to bear arms is a right that the founding fathers believed in, they could not have foreseen all the violence and damage that has come of it. The weapons used in the 1700’s (when the Bill of Rights was written) in comparison to those used now, were much more primitive and limited, such as to cannons, musket guns, and powder guns. In the present time, guns like handguns and ak 47s are more powerful and convenient to use.

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