By Amber Fink, Staff Writer
About 2 months ago at Florida Southern University (FSU) 3 students were injured at a shooting take place in their well-populated library. Concealed weapons have been prohibited on college campuses up until now but this policy may be about to change as the Florida bill is being considered allowing people on a college campus to have concealed weapons for their protection and their rights.
“Gun free zones” prevent nothing according to the Republican State Senator, Greg Steube. Therefore, in his opinion, why have a “gun free zone” that disables others, who do obey this rule, from protecting themselves. For example, in the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre 32 people were killed and 17 were injured. At the time that the incident occurred, Virginia Tech massacre was a gun free school, but that did not prevent this deadly occurrence.
“One incident involving a gun has occurred in the past 15 years, we have been very lucky. But nothing positive can come out of having guns on campus,” say Criminal Justice professor, David Persky.
“Just because an area is called ‘gun-free,’ that doesn’t stop the criminals from walking on and creating havoc,” Steube told MSNBC. “These ‘gun-free zones’ certainly don’t protect the innocent people that are there just because there is a law prohibiting people from carrying a firearm,” according to Steube.
“I think that it’s a pretty dangerous law. I mean we’re not even allowed Nerf guns on campus. With the independence factor on campuses, it’s going to be really hard to regulate and monitor,” says Junior and Criminal Justice major, Marc Lawton.
Of course there has to be boundaries on this, Steude has placed a restriction on which of the people on a college campus can access the weapons. Steude excludes younger college students, under the age of 21, and less than 1% of the state’s permit holders.
“The bill would not apply to us as a private University,” says Sergeant of Operations, Vincent “Mike” D’Ambrosio. However, he would not make any other comment on the matter.
For now, 8 Republicans support this bill and four Democrats oppose it. Only two other House committees have to approve this bill for it to go on to the next process. If this bill is passed, it will take effect on July 1. Florida will be the eighth state to allow guns on campuses. Other states that already approved this bill are Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin.
Eventually Steube would like to introduce guns into elementary, middle and high school as well, but that is to come later on.
The southern states often have mass shootings, active-shooters and several lockdown drills. These precautions are now routine for many students. Since the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT last Dec. there have been almost 100 school shootings in America. That is almost 8 mass shootings a month.
Clearly the gun laws are not strict, especially in the southern states. The southern states do not require background checks on the buyer of the weapon and allows the purchase of assault weapons. The lack of restrictions gives Florida one of the worst ratings when it comes to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
