Case for Conceal Carry in light of recent attacks

Andrew Bitautas, Staff Writer|December 14, 2015

Just last week, two Americans whom had pledged allegiance to ISIS, shot and killed 14 people along with wounding 21 others at a holiday party in San Bernardino, CA. This is just one of many attacks ISIS has claimed responsibility for in the last month, most notably the attacks in Paris that claimed over 130 people’s lives on November 13.

What really scares Americans is that ISIS has claimed to have trained militants in the United States, and has threatened to hit America just like it had to France-in the heart.

Investigators of the San Bernardino attacks recently disclosed that Syed Farook, the male attacker, frequently attended shooting ranges, including the day before the attack. Farook apparently owned an AR-15, an assault rifle capable of killing massive amounts of people.

In light of this event, Americans have been debating whether or not weapons such as the AR-15 should be available to Americans, and if conceal carry should even be legal. As of 2013, conceal carry is legal in every state, allowing Americans to carry weapons in public.

Opponents of conceal carry and the second amendment claim that most mass shootings have been carried out with legally bought weapons, and that many of them would have been prevented if only the criminals couldn’t legally buy them.

On the other side are people who claim that conceal carry have be extremely effective in stopping attackers from killing massive amounts of people.

Donald trump, currently the Republican presidential frontrunner, said, “And by the way, by the way, if the people in Paris or the people in California, if you had a couple of folks in there with guns, and that knew how to use them, and they were in that room, you wouldn’t have dead people, the dead people would be the other guys”.

Many Americans share Trumps belief that armed Americans could prevent further shootings, including the Governor of Texas, who on June 1 signed legislation allowing concealed carry throughout university campuses, which is set to begin Aug. 1 of 2016.

The University of Texas at Austin is one of the major schools that are subject to this new law, with over 51,000 students, including a handful of Central graduates.