Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Peace of Mind for All!
People living on the south side of Provo can hardly get home without passing several signs warning, "For your safety, you should not walk alone in this area after dark". Provo isn't often thought of as a dangerous place, but the end of 2008 saw a string of violent home invasions. Even the incidence of rape is close to the national average in this "college town". It's disturbing then, that such a high percentage of it's residents are legally prohibited from keeping a firearm in their home. Concealed-Carry permits issued by the state government are not even recognized in major parts of the city and at most workplaces. Proponents of this policy frequently point to violent incidents on school campuses and the risk involved with firearm irresponsibility. But it is my firm belief that there is no reason a state-issued weapons permit should not be honored on a university campus. Such permits require that a weapon remain completely hidden from view, and require that the permit holder have both training, and a spotless record. Anybody who used the weapon irresponsibly would have to break the law to do so. Of all the school shootings that have happened, how many of the perpetrators had a legal right to the weapon they used? Furthermore, a would-be rapist or attacker would think twice if they didn't have the peace of mind they have now. Until this policy changes, predators can roam the area knowing that their victims are unarmed. After all, the people who obey this policy aren't the ones we need to worry about!
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3 comments:
I understand your argument but at the same time I think that having a weapon in your home leads to more gun accidents than being used for protection. Also if a situation occurs with a home invasion or rapist, it is not very likely that you will have time to get your gun to use it for protection. I dont know the statistics or facts on that, just my opinion.
I agree with your statement, i think that people really should be allowed to carry firearms if they deem it necessary to do so. Just because there is a chance that one crazy student could go crazy, the potential of saving lives and virtue is always a good thing.
In order for you to really convince your audience, you're going to need to be more specific with some of the facts, the appeals to logos, that you're using. A string of violent home invasions--really? How many?
What if a shooting did happen after this was changed? How would BYU deal with it?
It may be hard to argue causation, that having guns will actually decrease the number of rapes and robberies. I believe most of the robberies take place when no one is at home, and just because guns are allowed probably isn't going to make a rapist think that every 18 year old girl is carrying a gun--most probably wouldn't be comfortable carrying a gun.
This isn't supposed to be a research paper, but if you can even get a fact about Utah violence from one of the local newspapers, and make sure that the reasoning you use is sufficient for people that might be completely opposed to you, then that will strengthen your argument. You might want to look up BYU's exact policy on the BYU web page so you can refer to it.
I might also recommend that you save some of the content of the first paragraph to develop later in the paper, that you focus in the first paragraph on hooking your audience in and introducing your argument.
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