Floridians: Tell Gov. Scott and your representatives that your personal security matters!

I fully support HB 4005 and SB 176, as well as any similar legislation, that will legalize the constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms. College and university campuses should not be immune to the Florida and national Constitution. Students, faculty, and staff should be allowed to exercise a personal liberty to take personal responsibility for their safety and security.

Florida’s higher education administrators are not qualified nor at the capacity to provide constant vigilance and protection for every student all the time. While the University and local police agencies do an outstanding job of serving the public good, they simply cannot provide personal security to each and every student that desires a higher education.

Ergo, allowing those legally permitted students, faculty, and staff an effective and reasonable means of securing their safety in the campus community, like each of our home communities, would serve to lower the burden on our first responders.

Nationally, the facts demonstrate that allowing concealed carry on campuses has not resulted in volatile or “blood bath” situations on any campus. In fact, nearly all mass shooting incidents since 1950 have occurred in the ironically dubbed “gun free zones.”