The debate to allow guns on campus is heating up

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By Marisol Bello
Gannett News Service | Thursday, February 14, 2008 11:59 PM CST | () comments

Even before a gunman killed five people and injured several others in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University, a small but growing movement had been under way at universities and state legislatures to allow students, faculty and staff to carry guns on campus.

Twelve states are considering bills that would allow people with concealed-weapons permits to carry guns at public universities. The efforts were sparked by the Virginia Tech massacre last April.

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, an Internet-based organization with 11,000 members in its Facebook group, is calling attention to the issue with a protest from April 21 to 25, a week after the one-year anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech on April 16.

“The only way to stop a person with a gun is another person with a gun,” says University of Cincinnati sophomore Michael Flitcraft, 23, a mechanical engineering major who has a license to carry guns but is prohibited by university rules from bringing one onto the campus.

So far, 1,600 students on 500 campuses have signed up on Facebook to participate in the protest by wearing empty holsters to class. W. Scott Lewis, the group’s spokesman, says about 530 students from 125 campuses joined a similar protest in October.

“School is the only place I’m not allowed to carry my weapon,” says Washington State University senior Kristin Guttormsen, 35, one of the group’s student leaders. He carries a .40-caliber Taurus Millenium Pro handgun.

“I felt defenseless and it started to bug me, especially with all the school shootings,” he says. “We’re not talking about convincing people to get licenses, we’re talking about people who already have their licenses. And for the most part, they are older students.”

South Dakota is the latest state to join the debate. The state House approved a bill last week that overturns the policy of the state’s six public universities prohibiting guns on campus. A state Senate committee voted down the bill on Monday, but efforts continue to push the bill to the full body for vote. Other bills are pending in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington.

“This is the piece of legislation of the year” among state lawmakers nationwide, says Kentucky Democratic Rep. Kathy Stein, who opposes it.

In her state, there is a battle over a bill that would allow a gun on campus if it is locked in a car. Stein says public universities should be allowed to set their own policies.

Kentucky’s eight public universities bar guns on campus, including parking lots.

The Kentucky bill’s sponsor, Democratic Rep. Robert Damron, says college campuses should be treated the same as every other place in Kentucky, where gun owners can keep firearms in their cars, regardless of whether they are on public or private property.

Only Utah allows permit holders to carry guns on the campuses of its nine public universities. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia prohibit guns in schools; 16 of those specifically prohibit guns in colleges and universities.

The push to allow guns on campus rankles Garrett Evans, who was shot in both legs during the Virginia Tech rampage, and Omar Samaha, whose younger sister, Reema, was killed.

“Having guns in the classroom only makes things worse,” says Evans, 31. He says the Virginia Tech gunman, Seung Hui Cho, walked into his German class and began shooting so quickly that no one would have had time to shoot back.

Samaha says guns on campus are a risk in an environment where young people drink and fight and are not always able to control their emotions.

“It’s kind of a crazy notion to think about,” he says. “It takes us back to the Wild, Wild West.”