Imagine walking into your lecture hall for the first time to teach. Shaky hands, sweaty palms and the desire to provide the best education possible for your students. You don't want to mess up.
Your first day becomes your 150th day, and over time, you've analyzed all the different profiles of your students. You know how to cater to certain ones and get in the minds of your most stubborn. You think of them as companions, you help them and provide support in and out of the classroom. You start to feel comfortable in front of them and feel happy you have such a rewarding career.
Until one day, your life ended because a mentally ill student got a hold of a gun and absentmindedly shot you in front of your entire class because he's angry, and he felt he can. Pointblank. You never had a problem with this student, you were just doing your job. Your entire class's life flashed before their eyes. You couldn't help them, not this time.
Guns aren't a place for public campuses. Because this isn't just a made up story, this is reality.
Florida is attempting to pass a bill to "allow concealed weapon permit holders to carry guns on Florida's public college campuses." Even though this hasn't been declared an official law yet, it is moving forward. This is a college student's worst nightmare. You could argue that if someone in class also was carrying a gun, the gunman could've been shot in the scenario above. I think that adds to the problem rather than solves it, you see, because the gunmen had no right to even be carrying a gun into his college classroom. Anyone can get a hold of a gun, but damn, can we try and make it a little harder for college campuses? College is supposed to be a safe-haven, a learning environment, where we are all in this together; unfortunately, our reality is much, much uglier.
My first day of orientation, a school shooting happened at my school. It was luckily taken under control, but the gunmen had plans to kill a mass amount of students. My Knights. The day of my orientation! What if it was me? What if I just so happened to come in contact with this person? This impossible thought rushes through the minds of all of us, because we are away from our families and we want more than anything to be safe and not think about the call our parents would get if anything did happen to us.
As a society, we are admitting to the harsh reality that we need guns to feel protected. But in the perspective of a college student, I feel like the Senate is giving into the sick, crazy, bastards who shoot up schools (among many other public places). Gun control is a problem within itself, but my focus now is solely on the public universities who have to face this prevalent issue.
Sure, let's just make it legal now because that'll make everything better? Does the Senate think that it's OK to make it legal for crazy people, because that also means it's legal for an average student who can protect themselves? Because I can assure you, I feel more threatened now that guns are legal. I feel like I should befriend everyone I meet in fear of one day this being MY reality. I feel like I can't be alone anywhere, in a place where I am supposed to feel like my college is my second home.
How can I feel safe, when I know there's unstable peers who will be able to lawfully carry a gun in their backpack or purse? What if I am in an open class discussion and happen to piss one of them off? "The bill's supporters say it's aimed at preventing campus shootings" is the most IRONIC statement I have ever heard, because I know if I speak my mind and do piss one of them off, I am dealing with more than the risk of a snobby remark, but the risk of life or death.
These feelings are not OK. The media highlighting the profiles of the twisted murderers on college campuses is not OK. Telling their story IS NOT OK. By telling a story that doesn't deserve to be told, you're planting more ideas into the minds of sick people. Tell the teacher's story. Where is the justice there?
My point is, allowing guns won't protect more people. It'll condone more violent actions in an atmosphere where we are supposed to feel secure. I didn't used to go to class in the morning thinking that my life will be danger, but I now I think about what the heck I would do, how I'd react, and where I'd go if something that happens on the news, happened to me. College students tend to think nothing will ever happen to them, and that we're invincible, until it does. I feel for our professors and authoritative figures who have to stand in front of a group of people they don't know, in fear they won't be the professor that's shot for no apparent reason at all. This might just sound bizarre, but yes, I do feel more safe knowing guns are ILLEGAL on college campuses. It makes me have a little more faith in humanity, and sometimes that's all we need to get by.
There's been 153 school shootings in America since 2013.
And you probably don't know any of the victims' names...
Just the person who killed them.
