In an effort to increase safety on college campuses, two Missouri lawmakers have proposed a lift on the current concealed carry of firearms campuses, but students aren’t convinced that is the solution to safety.
“It’s just scary, that’s putting my life at risk and my friend’s life at risk,” Southeast Missouri State University freshman Shelby Kolze said in reaction to the possibility of guns being allowed on campus.
Earlier this months, Senator Brian Munzlinger (R-MO) filed a bill to lift the campus gun ban. However, this same bill included a provision for colleges to opt out simply by applying with the state Department of Public Safety and staffing all buildings with security guards and weapons detectors.
Supporters of the bill referenced recent campus gun violence, like Umpqua Community College in Oregon, where in October a shooter opened fire on the campus where, possessing firearms “without written authorization” was a violation according to the student code of conduct.
However, students interviewed by local CBS affiliate KFVS didn’t see the proposed legislation as comforting or safe at all.
“Looking at the previous events that have happened in this country, so many shootings in different universities, I think having gun or having the right to carry gun will only increase the chances of this events happening,” Southeast student Raphael Pellenard said.
But it is exactly because of the concerns voiced by students like Pellenard, having the right to carry a gun on campus, that other students and institutions are for carry laws that would allow lawful carry for self-protection.
Student for Concealed Carry, composed of 43,000 college students, professors and various faculty and citizens, was started by a University of North Texas student after the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007. SCC advocates for holders of carry-licenses to “be allowed the same measure of personal protection on college campuses that current laws afford them virtually everywhere else.”
The same week the Missouri lawmakers filed the proposal to lift the current ban, Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. was met with applause when he encouraged students to carry concealed weapons so they could “teach them [terrorists] a lesson if they ever show up here.”
While the fate of concealed carry on Missouri campuses is still up in the air, one thing is for sure: as long as incidents like the shooting at Umpqua and San Bernardino continue to occur, so will the debates surrounding the right to carry.
Watch the video below of students at Southeast Missouri react to the proposed legislation to lift the gun ban.
