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State Bill Would Allow Guns on Campus

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD,

The New York Times

Posted: 2008-03-05 11:06:55

Filed Under: Law News, Nation News, Politics News

PHOENIX (March 5) - Horrified by recent campus shootings, a state lawmaker here has come up with a proposal in keeping with the Taurus .22-caliber pistol tucked in her purse: Get more guns on campus.

The lawmaker, State Senator Karen S. Johnson, has sponsored a bill, which the Senate Judiciary Committee approved last week, that would allow people with a concealed weapons permit — limited to those 21 and older here — to carry their firearms at public colleges and universities. Concealed weapons are generally not permitted at most public establishments, including colleges.

Charles Dharapak, AP

Visitors look at a makeshift memorial to the victims of the April 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va. That and other campus shootings prompted lawmakers in some states to consider allowing people to carry firearms on campuses.

Ms. Johnson, a Republican from Mesa, said she believed that the recent carnage at Northern Illinois University could have been prevented or limited if an armed student or professor had intercepted the gunman. The police, she said, respond too slowly to such incidents and, besides, who better than the people staring down the barrel to take action?

She initially wanted her bill to cover all public schools, kindergarten and up, but other lawmakers convinced her it stood a better chance of passing if it were limited to higher education.

“I feel like our kindergartners are sitting there like sitting ducks,” Ms. Johnson said last week when the bill passed the committee by a 4-to-3 vote.

This is a generally gun-friendly state, where people are allowed to carry a weapon on their hip without a permit as long as people can see it. Even so, Ms. Johnson acknowledges that her views come from the far right — she recently described herself, half-jokingly, she says, as a “right-wing wacko.”

Still, the proposal has troubled advocates of gun control here and elsewhere because it appears to be gaining popularity and has fed long-smoldering debates over restrictions on carrying firearms.

Since the Virginia Tech killings last April, other states have weighed similar legislation, to the disbelief of opponents, who note that the odds of lethal attacks are small, despite the publicity they attract.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a Washington nonprofit organization, said 15 states were considering legislation that would authorize or make it easier for people to carry guns on school or college campuses under certain conditions. Those states include Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Virginia, according to the center, but it considers the Arizona proposal particularly egregious because it would not only allow students and faculty to carry such weapons, but staff members as well.

Utah, the organization said, is the only state with a law that expressly allows people with a concealed-weapon permit to carry guns on college campuses. That law, adopted in 2004 and upheld by Utah’s Supreme Court in 2006, arose out of concern that a state law allowing concealed weapons was not being enforced on college campuses.

The critics of such laws predict that they would cause more problems, including making it hard for the police to sort a dangerous gunman from a crowd of others with guns. They also argue that the guns would make it easier for people barely out of adolescence, or perhaps emotionally troubled, to respond lethally to typical campus frustrations like poor grades or failed romances.

Fred Boice, president of the Arizona Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s three public universities, said he sympathized with people concerned about campus safety. In October 2002, a nursing student at the University of Arizona in Tucson who was failing his classes shot and killed three professors before killing himself.

But Mr. Boice said he believed security and a system of alerting people about crises had been improved since then, and he worried that disputes best handled by campus security could quickly turn deadly with more guns on campus.

“I grew up in the country and a lot of people had guns,” Mr. Boice said. “But my father said never carry a gun unless you are prepared to kill somebody, and I believe that.”

Proponents concede the proposal could face a fight, even in this state’s Republican-controlled Legislature. The police chiefs at Arizona’s universities and several law enforcement groups have condemned the bill.

“This is a very polarizing issue,” said John Wentling, vice president of the Arizona Citizens Defense League, a gun-rights group that has pushed for the bill.

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Even if Ms. Johnson’s bill eventually passes both chambers, it will probably take some convincing for Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, to sign it. Ms. Napolitano rejected a bill a few years ago that would have lifted a prohibition on carrying loaded firearms into bars, restaurants and other places that serve alcohol.

Ms. Johnson’s proposal has gotten a mixed reception on the campuses.

Jason Lewis, 23, an aerospace engineering major at the University of Arizona, said he was mugged twice on campus last year, at knife point and at gunpoint. He now has a concealed-weapons permit and carries his gun everywhere he can.

“It would at least let me protect myself,” said Mr. Lewis, one of a few students to testify in support of the bill at a recent hearing. “If word gets out students are arming themselves, criminals will be, like, ‘Maybe we should back off.’ It will be a deterrent.”

But Cole Hickman, a student at Arizona State University in Tempe, said he had sought to rally opposition to the bill, concerned that, among other things, it would further jeopardize people during a mass shooting. Proponents of the bill, Mr. Hickman said, underestimate the difficulty in shooting a live target in a chaotic episode.

“If another student in the room or a teacher had a gun and opened fire they may hurt other students,” he said, “because unlike police officers, concealed-weapon permit holders are not necessarily well-trained in shooting in crowds and reacting to those kinds of situations.”

Ms. Johnson is not fazed by the skeptics.

“We are not the wild, wild West like people think we are,” she said. “But people are more independent thinkers here when it comes to security.”

2008-03-05 09:26:46

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1669 comments

rabcomlink 03:17:56 PM Mar 15 2008

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Most people don't care about statistics, so they don't have accurate information to back up their beliefs. Often they rely on emotion instead of cold hard facts.

Kids? The people attending college these days has to average quite a bit above 24 years old. Students range from 19 to 24 years old in general, but there are many adults in our colleges today.

Its a difficult issue to address. Our college students cannot feel safe when so little is done to prevent some of the things that have happened during these last few year. They have a right to protect themselves if the Colleges can't.

jspbeef 03:16:30 PM Mar 12 2008

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This bill is a very good idea. Concealed weapons permit holders are fingerprinted, have no criminal record and are trained to obtain the permit. THEY ARE NOT "NUTS" as some people have posted. How in the world do people think gun control helps stop violence when Criminals will always get guns but the responsible citizens will not. One has to be totally misinformed as well as ignorant to think Gun restrictions help reduce crime. Its amazing!!!!

criminologist70 07:36:48 AM Mar 10 2008

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GUN CONTROL INCREASES VIOLENT CRIME, by shifting the balance of power to favor criminals, while it disarms helpless victims.

criminologist70 08:33:15 AM Mar 09 2008

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whtwchwho 11:28:09 PM Mar 08 2008
This is a STUPID idea. So, now instead of one nut with a loaded weapon, there might be hundreds or thousands! DUH.

Dear whtwhcwho
The crime rate of lawful CCW licensees (39 states and millions of licensees) is so low as to approach zero...far lower than the general population. Therefore there wouldn't be "hundreds or thousands" of "nuts with loaded weapons", there would be hundreds or thousands who are law-abiding and willing to risk their lives to save yours. DUH.

The existing laws guarantee that the nuts are the only ones armed today, and they have "Gun Free Zones" where they know no one is likely to fight back. Police response time is typical 5-15 minutes, which gives the nuts a lot of time to kill people. If the adults in the crime zones had been armed, the response time would be measured in seconds, thereby reducing the casualty totals.

GUN CONTROL INCREASES VIOLENT CRIME, by shifting the balance of power to favor criminals, while it disar

criminologist70 08:24:34 AM Mar 09 2008

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Part 3
Dear sarita1985

You said, "One of the most interesting facts I had learned in Criminology was that you are more likely to get shot if you own a gun."

Your claim is a mangled version of the infamous "43 to 1" study by Kellerman and Reay....and if you read that study, you would see that the authors ADMIT that their analysis only covers the negative points and deliberately ignores the positive self-defense effects of firearms. Therefore your claim is true in a very limited manner, but it is not a true analysis of overall "cost vs. benefit". Your statement is a "cost-only analysis", which you would not accept in any other aspect of your business or personal life.

The reality is that there are ~2.5 million defenses per year with a firearm vs. 0.5 million crimes per year. That is a 5x positive ratio. I'd suggest you go back in this thread and read my other posts.

criminologist70 08:15:08 AM Mar 09 2008

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Part 2
Dear sarita1985

You claim that there would be more violence due to more guns, but the 39 states with "shall issue" concealed carry, and their millions of carriers show that more violence does not follow. Less violence overall is the result, so there is no tradeoff of mass murders vs. more daily murders. CCW licensees have tiny violent crime rates, far lower than the population at large. And the overall state violent crime rates decline or remain steady in every state where "shall issue" CCW is enacted. No increased murder, suicide, or accident rates. Facts are facts.

criminologist70 08:11:39 AM Mar 09 2008

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Dear sarita1985

You ask some reasonable questions. I have some reasonable answers.

You ask about examples of the self-defense effect of CCW. The 3 most recent include the yeshiva shootout a few days ago, which had a much lower death toll because one or more students shot back, wounding the attacker and slowing him down until armed forces arrived on scene and finished him off. New accounts say he had hundreds of rounds of ammo, and there is no doubt he wanted to kill as many as he could. But an armed student or students prevented him from killing dozens or hundreds. There is no doubt he would have killed more than the Va. Tech murderer, since he was better trained and more highly motivated. Other recent examples include the New Life Church and the Appalachian Law School. CCW licensees stopped mass murders in places with lots of potential victims

You claim that there would be more violence due to more guns, but the 39 states with "shall issue" concealed carry, and their million

criminologist70 08:07:12 AM Mar 09 2008

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test

imalexdude 12:03:50 AM Mar 09 2008

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annalrichard, YOU ARE A FOOL! if you want to live the life of a sheep and obey every command you are told then the United States just isn't the place for you. If you have a problem with my right to keep and bear arms then try moving to Communist China or Cuba and keep your effeminate cowardly @$$ away from here.

imalexdude 11:54:01 PM Mar 08 2008

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Hey criminologist,

Some of the people on here are too incompetent to understand what you are saying. They seem to think that banning guns makes them magically disappear when in reality it only affects the law-abiding who were never inclined to break the law with their firearm in the first place. They only wished to use it for self-defense. Criminals love gun control though because it makes their jobs much safer when they are the only ones with guns.

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