Despite the recent tragedy in a Wesley Chapel cinema, Americans should still have the right to keep a gun on them — anywhere.

Policies that prohibit citizens from keeping guns in public places only harm law-abiding citizens, for the most part.

Zealots and loons who commit massacres and kill citizens randomly could care less about a public policy. Imagine Timothy McVeigh or the Boston Bombers seeing a sign on a movie theater wall that read “NO GUNS.”

Surely, they would walk on past it with their squadron of bombs and assault rifles, leaving the law-abiding citizens in the theater defenseless.

Curtis Reeves, Jr., the retired Tampa Police captain accused of killing a man for texting in a movie wasn’t a psycho or sociopath who set out to kill people, he had served in the police force since 1966,
protecting citizens, not harming them.

The sad example of Reeves’ poor choice to shoot an unarmed man should not be made into a platform for banning guns from public places. Sadly, that’s where guns are needed the most because the terrorists and loons usually choose these public places to make their malignant debut.

Reeves carried a gun with him as a retired police officer. We know that the majority of police serve, protect and keep watch over citizens. We also know that there have been a slew of deadly shootings in public places in the past few years, more than a justifiable reason to carry a concealed weapon into a theater or public place.

Granted, Reeves’ intentions involved malice and should be deplored, but not without losing hindsight on the recent massacres.

Movie attendants do not carry weapons.

Sometimes movie theaters have an officer on the theater property, but when a gunman walks into your theater and opens fire, you are alone.

A gun, however, can be with you everywhere and protect you when others can’t.

Some movie theaters, such as the Wesley Chapel theater, have gun restrictions in place, but at the expense of a tragedy like the one last week, it is simply unsafe. A policy can only do so much in reality.

Preston Copeland is a junior majoring in mass communications.