A sociology essay in 700-750 words in either apa or mla format.

Campus Carry Debate

Ardent Sharma

El Centro College

Campus Carry Debate

Personal Opinion

Permitting the students to carry guns in school has more disadvantages that surpass the claimed security benefits. Therefore, campus carry is a bad idea. Security is the common denominator in the debate on campus carry. Permitting the students to carry guns to schools is likely to worsen the security of the students and those who surround them.

Permitting the students to carry guns to school will escalate the crime rates in schools. It cannot be assumed that all the students in college are morally good hence cannot be harmful when allowed to legally carry guns. Campuses, just like the general society, have some bad people among the innocent ones. Just like the society can have robbers, rapists, and psychopaths, the campuses also have such kind of people only that they might not have the capacity to express their bad character. Allowing every student to have guns also means allowing the bad students to have weapons too. This step will increase their capacity to do harm hence likely to increase crime rates.

Allowing the students to carry guns increases the chances of confrontations that can escalate and prove lethal. Possessing a gun is likely to increase the students’ aggression when it comes to reacting to irritation. More lethal injuries are likely to be experienced when students possess a lethal weapon of a gun kind. Permitting guns will also put the innocent students at more lethal risk when confronted by criminals. There are higher chances that a criminal will shoot a person when they know that they are also armed with dangerous weapons.

I like your opener but you should work on it having a more person appeal. For instance, have you ever had an experience with guns? Could you imagine what it would be like to encounter a gun? I’m asking to see how your personal informs your opinion- in other words, what have you experienced or not experience that drew you to this conclusion. So far you have written statements about what you think will happen but not the reason why you think this way.

The argument in support of “Campus carry is based on the claim that it will lower the criminal cases by improving the capacity of the individual students to protect themselves. I don’t agree with this claim. This argument can only hold under an ideal situation where variables such as aggressions among the students are held constant and where all the criminals are deprived of accessing the similar lethal weapons. Otherwise, more unintended deaths and lethal injuries through shootings will increase hence creating a more insecure environment. Also, the criminals will only be more aggressive knowing that they are dealing with equally dangerous people, therefore, creating a further insecure environment in campuses.

Quantitative Analysis

The above graph is statistics showing the trend in the campus shooting. The shooting is seen to be generally increasing since 2005. However, the increase has been relatively spontaneous between 2013 and 2015. The most probable reason for the general trend of increase in the number of deaths in campuses due to shooting is the adoption of campus carry. Before 2006, very few states allowed campus carry and the lowest average number of the campus shooting incidences is recorded during this period. Since 2011, the more states have been seen adopting campus carry (Garces, 2015). The average number of campus shooting incidents is seen to be the highest during this period.

Address this more numerically. What do are the numbers for each year and it would be important to discuss the general trend of the numbers.

The Sociological Aspect: Symbolic Interactionism Theory

The symbolic theory implies holds that people act towards things based on the meanings those things have for them (Giddens, 2017). The meanings of this thins are derived from the social interaction and manipulated through interpretation. A dangerous object will trigger a negative reaction towards them and probably to the people associated with them.

A gun symbolizes a violent action to most of the people. Regardless of why it is used, the use of guns results to harm. Therefore, it is likely to influence a negative action towards it. According to the theory of “the weapon effect,” a mere presence of a gun or just its picture can trigger people’s aggressive behavior.

What is the “weapon effect” theory? Remember you cannot use outside sources. You can make a similar argument without needing to cite a direct source. This section is meant to show your level of understanding of the theory. You should stick with the first part where you address it well.

This theory implies that people can easily identify dangerous stimulus and react with equal or excessive force to stop the anticipated harm the stimulus can cause to them. Therefore, possessing a gun puts people into more is of receiving an excessive reaction from the people they might arouse. Campus carrying is, therefore, likely to increase the cases of shootings in the campuses.

“Excessive response” is a good way to address this. Perhaps relate it back to fear/ fear of the unknown and how that may affect other students, staff, or classmates. That would help transition your piece from the theory into the real world/classroom.

Conclusion

"Campus Carry" is not an effective solution to the violent crime cases in the United States but a situation that is likely to increase the cases of the campus shootings. Guns should be prohibited in school so as to reduce the number of shootings cases.

Reference:

Garces, A. (2015). Debate Continues on Arming Campus Police. The Guardsman. Retrieved from http://theguardsman.com/debate-continues-on-arming-campus-police/

Giddens, A. (2017). Essentials of sociology.

The University of Texas at San Antonio (2017). Campus Carry. About Texas Senate Bill 11. Retrieved from https://www.utsa.edu/campuscarry/aboutsb11.html