Hi ____,
It has been brought to our attention that you have a carry & conceal license and are carrying a firearm with you. It is against ________ policies to have weapons on school grounds or in the student housing. Please see _______________ and ________ of the housing agreement which governs the student housing (also copied below).
Students are prohibited from carrying any type of firearm on the school's premises or parking areas.
The following are prohibited in or on apartment premises:
Weapons
While we understand your wish to protect yourself, particularly traveling, and respect that you have a license to carry a concealed weapon, we must abide by our school policies and therefore cannot allow weapons on the premises of the school or student housing. Thanks.
Someone I know received this email, and while I had to remove a substantial amount of info to protect identities, you can definitely get the gist of the email. Now, this is not in the state of Indiana, but our brother to the south, Kentucky, but I still felt it would spark good conversation. The individual is in the middle of a semester at this institution, so he/she will not be telling them to pound sand and leaving, as that would be a huge waste of money. I have, however, decided with the individual to respond by email. Here is what I have written so far:
Hello ______,
I would like to clarify some points in your previous e-mail regarding School and Housing Policies. First, I do not hold a “carry & conceal license”, or “a license to carry a concealed weapon”. Indiana, which is obviously where I am from, has no such license. I do hold a license from my state to carry a handgun, however. When you stated, “While we understand your wish to protect yourself, particularly traveling, and respect that you have a license to carry….”, what did you mean by understand and respect? If _______ understands my wish to protect myself from harm, and respects that wish, would that not mean you will allow me to do exactly that? However, since you contradict yourself later in the same sentence, I am assuming you do not understand or respect my desire to defend myself. Since _________ is a private organization, I will abide by the policies set forth and no longer carry a firearm on the property. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, as I probably would not have known this if you had not.
Regarding ________ of the student housing agreement, what is defined as “weapons”? Am I not allowed to have a steak knife? What about my scissors? Clearly you can see that there are numerous items that can be used as a weapon, even if you do not define it as that. Once again, I will follow the policies of the institution, but now that it has been brought to my attention, it seems rather vague and broad.
I hope that you do not take this as offensive _____, as this is not an issue I have with you, but rather the policies of _______. Gun ownership and gun control are very heated debates in this country as more and more shootings occur, especially in schools and universities. While making policies against guns may seem, on the surface, as the obvious solution, in reality it has the opposite effect. Criminals do not follow laws or policies, or they wouldn’t be criminals. On the other hand, I, as a law-abiding citizen, do follow the law and rules already established. In this case, following that policy can put me in danger without a means to defend myself. This makes me very nervous, and I hope that I am not put in a position where I need to defend myself, as there are armed security guards that would be able to help me.
Sincerely,
Now, let me know what you guys think, add some stuff in (I wrote this letter in about 5 mins and I am sure I made some mistakes and am forgetting a bunch of stuff), etc! Thanks.