Alabama State Senator Hank Erwin (R) recently proposed a bill that would allow some college students to carry guns on campus for self-protection. A similar bill, allowing college students to carry concealed weapons on their campuses, recently passed in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. In response to the shooting that took place on Feb. 14 at Northern Illinois University, leaving six dead, and the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech last year, there is a growing number of people who believe that these violent events would occur far less often were college students allowed to bear arms on campus.
It is not just legislators who think armed students might make campuses safer. Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, which claims to have a membership of 20,000, argues that since licensed Americans can carry guns in churches, movie theaters, office buildings, shopping malls and banks, college campuses should be no different. Furthermore, the group thinks that it is not only the right of licensed Americans to carry concealed weapons on college campuses, but that it can be an added security measure for those colleges. On its website, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus states that concealed weapons on campus can help to protect the student body.
"The Virginia Tech shootings clearly showed that a deranged gunman can do a great deal of damage in just the few minutes it takes campus police or security to arrive on the scene," the website says. "Campus police simply cannot be dispatched in time to stop a madman from taking innocent lives. Only the people at the scene when the shooting starts - the potential victims - have the ability to stop such a shooting rampage before it turns into a bloodbath."
Unlike Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, the bills that are currently being legislated in state congresses would not allow all American students with licenses to carry concealed weapons on campus; in fact, Erwin's bill is very specific about which students would be permitted to carry weapons. In order to carry a gun under his proposal, a student would have to have no felony or misdemeanor convictions, be in an ROTC military training program, and have completed a gun skills course. Also, the bill would only apply to state colleges and universities; private institutions could still insist upon being gun-free zones.
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