This document opposes allowing guns on college campuses for several reasons: 1) College-aged students' brains are not fully developed until age 24 and research shows they engage in more risky behaviors. 2) Most college students drink alcohol and mixing alcohol and guns is dangerous. Over 696,000 students have been assaulted by others who were drinking. 3) More guns would likely increase deaths, as evidenced by few gun deaths on campuses currently. If a shooting occurred where others present had guns, many more could be killed. 4) The author, a college student, would feel unsafe if guns were allowed and many others agree based on growing petitions against guns on campuses.

1. Colleen Bakker
Mr. Brian Fanelli
ENG 105 OA
March 5, 2015
Guns on Campus
In the United States, more than 30,000 people are killed by firearms each year. Half of
them are between the ages of 18 and 35, which is a typical age range of college students. Why
would we want these killing machines in our places of education? Guns do not belong on our
nation’s college campuses. Federal and state laws have proven that gun-free campuses have a
considerably small amount of gun violence and if we want it to stay that way, we should keep
them off of our campuses. Our schools should be focusing on educating students about the
dangers of firearms, and reminding gun-owners to secure firearms and ammunition and use them
safely, rather than on arming teachers and students. Allowing them to carry weapons will not
prevent most crimes from happening (“Firearms Shouldn’t be Allowed”). I feel that allowing
students and professors to carry firearms should continue to be fought against.
Dr. Ken Winters of the University of Minnesota has done research on the human
brain in connection with maturity levels and has found that the human brain is not fully
developed until the age of 24. The brain changes drastically during our teen and young adult life,
so even when a person looks mature and carries themselves well, their brain actually is not done
maturing until that age. That is something to think about when discussing whether firearms

2. should be allowed to be carried in schools where a large majority of the college students that
occupy them are under the age of 24. Knowing that, how safe can this idea really be? Similar
studies done by Dr. Ken Winters showed that individuals in their late teens and early 20s exhibit
poor planning and poor judgment, seek riskier, more impulsive behaviors, often do not think of
the negative effects of their actions, prefer high-excitement and low-effort activities, preferably
physical ones, and most things that an adult would look at as dangerous, they look at it as fun. It
has been found that being in a group setting brings on these risk taking behaviors. A firearm
could easily be perceived as a “good time”. In almost every state, legislators of public colleges or
universities have restricted gun possession on most or all parts of school property. As a result of
this, and some other similar laws that are being put into place that prohibit guns to be carried by
persons under the age of 21, few students have access to guns, which makes campuses safe and
protected learning environments.
Since people have been coming together and cracking down on not allowing guns
on our campuses, there has been a report of less than 2% of college students that have been
threatened with a gun. Out of the 12,000 estimated gun homicides in the U.S. in 2003, only 10 of
them have been on our nation’s college campuses. It is also good to know that because people
are fighting so hard to keep the guns out of our schools, students are much less likely to be
victims of crime than non-students. Altogether, gun crimes have gone down a great amount from
1995-2002. These statistics are put into place to make people aware of the dangers of guns being
allowed on college campuses. They are there to make students feel safer and parents of students
feel more at ease to know there kids will be in a safe place getting an education.

3. Another thing that is widespread with college students is drinking alcohol
(“Harvard’s college alcohol study”). Over the last year, 86% of college students reported
drinking alcohol. Half of them report binge drinking over the last two weeks from when this
survey was taken. Although this is not permitted in the dorms, it still happens. College students
are at the age where partying on Friday and Saturday night is a highlight of their week. Music,
beer, liquor, drinking games and 50 students in a house can get pretty crazy in itself. Now, if you
add guns to that mix, it goes from fun and wild, to unpredictable and deadly. Alcohol remains the
number one high-risk attribute for college students today and with the increasing number of
shootings that have taken place on college campuses it just seems absolutely irrational to allow
guns to be possessed or carried by these students. Alcohol and firearms do not mix! More than
696,000 students have been assaulted by another student that had alcohol in his/her system at the
time of the assault. Can you imagine if guns were allowed to be carried by these students? How
many of those assaults would have resulted in death? This is why I am arguing against guns
being allowed to be carried on campus. It does not make me feel safer knowing that the boy
sitting next to me, who could have a mental illness or could be angry at females in general
because of a rough breakup, might have a gun in his belt. That is enough to force me want to
attend only online classes and by the amount of information I just presented, I am obviously not
the only one who feels that way.
It has been proven that allowing students and professors carry guns on college
campuses will not lessen the crime or death toll in the wake of a crime. In fact, if there were
someone firing a gun in a class and 20 other people in the room had guns on them, that would be
21 guns pulled out, opening firing in a classroom. The death toll is going to be far greater than if
there were just one gun being fired. I do understand the fact that people are fearful on campuses

4. because of the gun violence that has happened in the U.S. over the years. I do not disagree with
their fears, but I do disagree with their idea that carrying a weapon would cut back on crime. If a
student were to carry a can of mace it would work just as good to stop someone from being
attacked as a gun would. The only difference is that mace could result in the attacker being
fought off and possibly caught and jailed for his/her crime, compared to a gun, which could
cause all those who are involved lives to be lost plus innocent bystanders. From my point of
view, the opposing party to this argument has no logical argument. Guns are deadly and allowing
them on school campuses will result in a lot more fatalities than have occurred up until now. We
cannot allow this to happen.
As a current college student myself, I would be much more scared if guns were
allowed in my school. There are a lot of petitions going around and a lot of supporters who agree
with my opinion to not allow students to carry guns on college campuses and it continues to
grow. Let us keep our places of education, which are some of the safest places to be, just that.
There is still a lot of controversy on this subject and so far, the only state to have approved guns
on campuses is the state of Utah. The Second Amendment, which is the right to bear arms, is not
even an issue in this debate because it is subject to restrictions, guns in schools being one of
them. The issue is more based on public safety. Everyone who is a part of this argument has one
common goal, to ensure student and faculty’s safety while at school. Now it just depends on how
hard our society is going to fight to have this action halted and held in place.