UCF student Justin Sumpter tries to avoid coming to campus as much as possible.
As a citizen with a legal concealed carry license, Justin likes to have his gun on him at all times for increased protection. After personally experiencing a horrible incident, Justin felt compelled to take action and raise awareness for concealed carry on college campuses by becoming the President of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus at UCF(SCCC).
“It’s a personal issue to me because I was actually involved in an armed robbery and I wasn’t allowed to have my handgun on me because I had been working at a local high school. Under Florida law, I was not able to have my handgun even in my car when I am on that property and was not able to defend myself from that robbery. As a result of that, I am very adamant about making sure everybody, including myself has that right in the event of something like that ever happening again.” Justin told KnightNews.com.
On January 14, 2013, UCF Police arrested two suspects after they allegedly robbed a delivery man on campus, the victim told UCF Police that the suspects had a gun on them. Two weeks later, a man was pistol-whipped walking in the parking lot close to the UCF Water Tower at Gemini Boulevard.
Although most students that attend UCF are under the legal concealed carry age of 21, would allowing concealed carry on campus help quell the influx of violence that has recently happened at UCF?
Ali Kurnaz, the Vice President of the College Democrats at UCF, told KnightNews.com in a message, “While the Democratic Party and our organization supports every American citizen’s Second Amendment right to bear arms within the extent of the law, we do not condone the carrying of weapons into schools, day care centers, places of worship, hospitals, and dormitories.”
However, we did catch up with students around UCF to get a better idea on the overall student opinion of concealed carry on campus. We received mixed opinions on the subject, but as one UCF student said, “More guns aren’t going to solve the issue, on campus violence is going to happen anyways.”
