Persuasive Research Sample Essay

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Running head: GUNS IN PUBLIC AREAS 1

GUNS IN PUBLIC AREAS 3

Guns Should Be Allowed in Public Areas Because It Will Make the Country Safer

Michael Dill

Keiser University

Abstract

This paper discusses the importance of expanding conceal carry to more public areas to provide a safer country. Allowing people to conceal carry in places such as school, retail and restaurants, and public parks will help keep innocent people safe from criminals. A teacher with a conceal carry will give the students and facility the ability to fight back and protect themselves from an active shooter at the school. Employees that conceal carry are given the opportunity to ensure the customers are safe from any criminal trying to do harm. Public parks will be safer with more law-abiding citizens carrying a concealed gun to protect the people at the park from criminals or anyone trying to do harm. This essay will give reasons why it is important to allow American citizens to carry concealed firearms. By doing this, it will provide protect to innocent people from criminals in the time that law enforcement is dispatched and to when they arrive.

Guns Should Be Allowed in Public Areas Because It Will Make the Country Safer

All of the death tolls change, even the places change: nine deaths in a church, 26 deaths in an elementary school, 49 deaths in a nightclub, and now the latest, five deaths in the streets of Dallas, Texas (Berkowitz, Gamio, Lu, Uhrmacher, & Lindeman, 2016). If areas like these allowed people to conceal carry firearms, the death tolls of many shootings like these would be substantially lower then what they actually are now. The Department of Homeland Security research revealed that the average length of an active shooter incident is 12.5 minutes. With the average response time for law enforcement to arrive at the scene is approximately18 minutes (Murgado, 2013), that response time is not fast enough to fully prevent an active shooter and to protect the innocent bystanders of that incident. Guns should be allowed in public areas because it will make the country safer.

First of all, allowing guns in public areas, such as schools it will make the country safer by giving the school a chance to fight back, and to protect the student and teachers from any active shooter. Letting a teacher conceal carry and being properly trained can reduce the casualty rate by stopping the active shooter before they are able to do harm. It takes law enforcements an average of 18 minutes to respond to an active shooter incident (Murgado, 2013), having an employee at the school carry will respond to the active shooter a lot quicker then the police are able too. They can stop the active shooter or at the very least slow them down long enough for law enforcement to arrive to the scene at the school. A recent Gallup poll indicated that the majority of Americans surveyed, believe that placing an armed person at schools is the answer to school shooting tragedies (Crews, Crews, & Burton, 2013). This shows that Americans would prefer an armed teacher or officer at their children schools to ensure their safety. Guns in schools will be safer for the students and teachers to provide protect against an active shooter.

Secondly, by having employees in retail and restaurants being able to conceal carry will make the country safer by having a response time faster then the local law enforcement by a significant amount. Firearms can help prevent employees from a criminal attack. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recognized criminal acts of violence in the workplace as a hazard that employers might need to guard against if violence is a recognized hazard in their establishments (Witter, 2010). By prohibiting concealed weapons may only make law-abiding customers and employees more vulnerable targets for criminals, especially if the business was to have a sign stating no weapons are allowed posted (Witter, 2010). Retail and restaurants that openly allow conceal carry can make their workplaces safer by deterring criminals from targeting those areas. Criminals would more then likely not attack a workplace that carries firearms and are more likely to stay away from that workplace, rather then the ones that prohibit firearms on the premises. To ensure that the employees and customers are safe before law enforcement arrives employees should have to option to conceal carry.

Lastly, implementing more gun rights to allow conceal carry in public parks will help keep the country safer, by giving the innocent people at the park a form of protection from any criminal that is trying to do harm. The right of self-defense is founded on the law of nature; and is not, nor can be, superseded by any law of society (Kautzer, 2015). This is now called the Stand Your Ground; in 2005, Florida made this the Protection of Persons law. This law abrogates the duty to retreat in public areas; the law explicitly makes ‘no retreat’ the standard. It also creates a criminal and civil immunity for people acting in self-defense, which means that, a person cannot be sued in civil court for using deadly force (Kautzer, 2015). Criminals seek for weak areas to attack. If they know that people carry firearms in areas they are more likely to not attack that area than if guns are prohibited to be in the public area. The Protection of Persons law works best if the public area allows conceal carried firearms to help protect the innocent. Without this, it is extremely hard to protect from active shooters without a there own firearms to fight back with.

In order to make the country safer, guns should be allowed in more public areas such as schools, retail and restaurants, and public parks. The Protection of Persons law allows for the right to Stand Your Ground against criminals in order to protect the innocent. Giving more employees the right to defend themselves and others against criminals that seek to harm individuals. The Protection of Person law protects the person from using deadly force if needed to protect the innocent. Business’s that prohibit guns can be more likely for active shooters, for which the criminal knows that there are no weapons allowed on the premises, making for an easier attack. Students and teachers will be safer if there was an armed person at the school to respond fast then the local law enforcement. It will also deter criminals and active shooters from wanting to attack school. All in all, allowing more guns with registered law-abiding citizens will make the country a safer place.

References

Berkowitz, B., Gamio, L., Lu, D., Uhrmacher, K., & Lindeman, T. (2016). The math of mass shootings. Retrieve from https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/mass-shootings-in-america/

Crews, G. A., Crews, A. D., & Burton, C. E. (2013). The only thing that stops a guy with a bad policy is a guy with a good policy: An examination of the NRA's "national school shield" proposal. American Journal of Criminal Justice: AJCJ, 38(2), 183-199. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12103-013-9202-x

Kautzer, C. (2015). Good guys with guns: From popular sovereignty to self-defensive subjectivity. Law and Critique, 26(2), 173-187. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10978-015-9156-x

Murgado, A. (2013). Quicker response to active shooters. Retrieved from http://www.policemag.com/channel/patrol/articles/2013/10/quicker-response-to-active-shooters.aspx

Witter, D. (2010). Individual gun rights, gun laws, and franchising: Why franchisors cannot ignore the controversy. Franchise Law Journal, 29(4), 239-247,252. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/519661712?accountid=35796