A bill introduced in the Arkansas House of Representatives that allows licensed and trained professors and staff members to carry concealed handguns on college campuses passed the state Senate Monday and is currently on its way to the Office of the Governor, where it will either be vetoed or signed into state law.
House Bill 1243 was introduced and sponsored by Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, on Feb. 1, 2013, in light of recent school and mass shootings in an effort to make Arkansas university campuses safer. Since college campuses are currently gun free zones, they are potential targets for violent criminals. Collins says that campuses in Arkansas would be safer if professors and staff were allowed to carry handguns.
“Crazies and killers, they understand where the gun-free zones are,” he said in an interview with 5News in Fayetteville in December when he spoke of plans to reintroduce the bill after it failed last session.
When Collins spoke before the state House he said we have a “serious problem” in America.
“On our college campuses, about every two months we have somewhere in the country a shooting incident,” he said. “And our loved ones are the ones that are suffering. One of the things I think we can do to protect our loved ones is to move forward with this bill.”
When the bill was originally written, it would have required public institutions to allow the concealed carry of handguns on campus. Collins has since amended the bill to allow institutions to have an annual vote to allow them to opt out if they so wished. The bill also had a provision for private universities, such as Ouachita, to opt out.
Governor Mike Beebe told reporters in a statement on Feb. 15 that because the bill allows for universities to decide whether or not they want handguns on campus the bill is “palatable” and that he is probably going to sign it. Collins also said that after adding the opt out provision, the state’s public two-year and four-year universities agreed not to oppose it. As the bill has already passed both the House and Senate, its fate is up to Beebe.
Stephen Curry, a sophomore church music major, said that he would rather not have professors carry concealed weapons on campus but that the situation may not be that simple.
“It’s hard because you want to have access to firearms to stop a gunman,” he said. “But at the same time, having all these guns around could potentially be a bad situation.”
Curry is not alone in his views. Shane Light, a student at Henderson, said that university professors carrying concealed handguns is an “added element of danger” in an interview with THV 11 News in Little Rock.
“I don’t really feel like its safe for a teacher to have a gun in the classroom,” said Abby Fain, a junior biology major. “I don’t feel like there is a necessary reason to have it. If there was a drastic situation where a teacher were to get mad or go crazy or something, then the situation wouldn’t end well.”
Still, other students have voiced their support for the measure. Jordan Stewart, a sophomore business management major, compared the idea to Cold War nuclear deterrent strategies.
“I think that people having concealed weapons is a similar concept to why the United States has so many nuclear weapons,” he said. “It’s just a preventative measure to keep anybody else from bombing us. Its not like we’re going to use them in the foreseeable future, but we still have them as a sort of protection.”
“I think the same thing applies to having concealed handguns for staff and faculty,” he said. “If somebody knew the campus was protected, they’d be less likely to do something.”
Dr. Kevin Motl, assistant professor of history, said that while he understands the motivations of gun advocates to make as many public spaces as safe as possible, he does not believe that the average university faculty member would have the competency with firearms to merit regular concealed carry on campus.
“My reasoning for this is that whenever we see a school shooting situation it is by definition a tactical environment,” he said. “And in concealed carry classes, which is usually the maximum level of formal training or certification that a weapons carrier would have within a student body or faculty body, those competencies do not constitute sufficient qualifications to deal with a tactical situation.
“In my view there would be a greater danger in that environment to other civilians from someone carrying weapons on campus than there would be to a campus shooter or team of shooters. The potential for greater harm is far more likely than the potential for doing good.”
Ouachita administration said it has no plans to change its no firearms policy if the legality of carrying concealed handguns on college campuses were to change.
“This has been the longstanding policy for Ouachita as it relates to campus safety,” said Trennis Henderson, vice president for communications. “It has worked very effectively for us in the past. We have a strong safety record and would not anticipate the need to revisit that.”
For more information on House Bill 1243, or to view the full text of the proposed bill, go online to www.arkansashouse.org/bill.
Satirical cartoon by Noah Hutchinson.
