Dr. Steven L. Johnson and the Sinclair Community College Board of Trustee’s, I write this editor as not only one of your students but also the father of two students. On 21 December 2016 Governor John Kasich signed into law allowing carry of concealed firearms on college campuses. Please allow adults to exercise their civil rights. Allow adults to protect themselves both on and around campus.
Allowing your adult students to carry concealed arms does not mean that someone that cannot conceal carry legally elsewhere in Ohio can carry on campus. The vetting process to obtain a concealed carry license includes an extensive background investigation. The applicants require an 8-hour class in order to apply. Concealed carry licensees have a lower rate of committing crime then society at a whole. According to a Florida study crime only .02% were committed by carry permit holders.
It has been seen on more than one occasion that concealed carry holders have stopped potential mass killers. A recent CDC study states that firearms are used “from about 500,000 to more than 3 million times per year. This same study states that crime victims that use a firearm have “lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.” Considering all this, denying your students, your staff and your visitors the ability to defend themselves is the wrong approach. Please don’t take away my ability to defend myself.
I am certain that some of the staff and students will state that they are scared about the thought of having fellow students and staff with firearms. These same people are around the people that are carrying every day. The person next to them in the supermarket checkout line, in the coffee shop and even the car next to them. They would never know that a fellow student, staff member or even visitor is carrying a firearm. As a nation, the ability to exercise a civil right is not about other people being happy but about the right itself.
I ask again that you take the time to consider allowing the concealed of arms on the campus.
-Brian Crissman