Please, no guns on campus.

This morning the Idaho Senate State Affair Committee considered a bill that would preclude Idaho schools from banning concealed weapons. The bill was sent back to its drafters due to many technicality issues. However, there is a strong intent by interest groups that leads me to believe that this bill (or others like it) will again go before the Idaho Legislature. If the measures in this bill were passed, then neither the Idaho board of education, individual college boards or presidents would be able to declare campuses to be gun-free zones.

Of course, this bill was prompted by campus shootings, specifically the Virginia Tech massacre. While I sympathize with the authors of the bill (several undergraduate students from the University of Idaho), I cannot agree with the idea that more guns will cause less violence. This proposed bill and others like it is simply the product of bad ideas forged from good intentions.

One flaw in the line of thinking that produces this type of measure is that it is based on the emotion that comes from events like the Virginia Tech shooting. While America is the world leader in handgun violence, the truth is that most shootings on school campuses are personal, with only one or two victims. Naturally, these events rarely make the news in the way that group shootings do. For example, early in February a woman at Louisiana Tech shot two other students and then herself. In situations like these, armed citizens really are unable to react quickly enough. Even a solider or policemen could likely do nothing except perhaps shoot the killer after she shot the two victims.

While concealed weapons being allowed on campus could potentially lower the victim count of mass shootings, it is never a sure thing. Craig Hemmens, a criminal justice professor and Boise State University conduct officer, finds it hard to believe that the presence of concealed weapons on campus will actually deter psychotic killers like the young man at Virginia Tech. Concerning this bill he asserted that lawmakers make the mistake of relating to the shooters and believing that “they think like us.” A high majority of shooters commit suicide or plan on dying. These mentally ill individuals will almost certainly not be persuaded not to commit their crimes, they may simply become more careful about their work.

An important question to ask is how you, the reader and college student or faculty member, feel about having concealed weapons on your campus. Will you feel comfortable sitting in an auditorium with 250 students knowing that several of them likely have loaded handguns, or that there may be a loaded weapon sitting in the dorm room next to yours? I for one would feel less rather than more secure. And what of the potential increase in the smaller and more common shootings? Quarrels among students – as well as between student and teacher – are not uncommon on college campuses and many of them escalate to physical violence. With concealed weapons on campus, several new opportunities for “in the heat of the moment” murders and manslaughter would grow.

I would also like to point out the reputation of college students to be intoxicated, and the higher rate of violent crime committed while under the influence. After all, a University of Idaho student drafted this bill. Alright, that doesn’t really have much bearing, but consider the fact that according to a UI poll more than 30 percent of UI on-campus population consumes more than seven alcoholic beverages a week. I personally would like to keep guns away from that type of environment.

I think it is a shame when institutions are unable even to declare their own working and learning environments to be gun-free. Gun-free zones are not against the second amendment. If I choose to have a gun-free house or business that is my right as a citizen, and I believe that it is the only responsible choice of schools to keep weapons away from campuses. Idaho legislature is made up by a majority of lawyers and farmers, but through this bill they will be telling the board of education and every college board how to do their jobs. I believe that allowing concealed weapons on campus would be not only ineffective but also harmful to the learning community. I want to keep guns, knives and every other instrument of violence off this campus, concealed or otherwise, and I hope you, as informed citizens, do as well.

STEPHEN HELEKER
Opinion Writer

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