Published: March 29, 2008 08:29 am            

Oklahoma looks at arming college students

OKLAHOMA CITY — A legislative proposal designed to allow concealed guns on the campuses of state colleges and universities has been assigned to the Senate’s appropriation sub-committee on education.

Senate leaders made the assignment after House Bill 2513 was sent to the Senate’s full appropriations committee. The bill passed the Oklahoma House of Representatives by a 65-36 vote last week.

Under House Bill 2513 — written by Guthrie Republican Jason Murphey — honorably discharged veterans and others with firearms training would be allowed to carry a concealed weapon on the campus of an Oklahoma college or university.

The bill is not popular with the state’s higher education community.

The measure has drawn harsh criticism from education officials across the state including a plea from University of Oklahoma President David Boren asking lawmakers to kill the bill. Oklahoma State Unversity President Burns Hargis also has spoken out against the bill. Hargis outlined his opposition in an e-mail to OSU students.

Additionally, OU’s Faculty Senate passed a resolution asking lawmakers to reconsider their support of the measure.

“We believe that allowing guns on our campus would endanger the safety of our students, faculty and staff,” the resolution said. “Furthermore, we, the faculty, cannot imagine being able to conduct class in a classroom where one or more of our students might be armed. We cannot imagine students being able to concentrate on a class, knowing that some of their fellow students might be armed. We ask you to reconsider.”

Other groups echoed the OU faculty.

This week, the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators issued a statement saying the IACELA’s Board of Directors believes “concealed carry” initiatives do not make campuses safer.

“There is no credible evidence to suggest that the presence of students carrying concealed weapons would reduce violence on college campuses. In fact, we are concerned that concealed carry laws have the potential to dramatically increase violence on college and university campuses that our members are empowered to protect.”

The organization said it had several concerns about the bill, including the “potential for accidental discharge or misuse of firearms at on-campus or off-campus parties where large numbers of students are gathered or at student gatherings where alcohol or drugs are being consumed, as well as the potential for guns to be used as a means to settle disputes between or among students.”

“There is also a real concern that campus police officers responding to a situation involving an active shooter may not be able to distinguish between the shooter and others with firearms,” the organization’s statement said.

Boren, a former governor, appealed to lawmakers to reconsider the proposal.

“While I strongly support the rights of our citizens to keep and bear firearms under the Second Amendment to the Constitution, allowing guns on college campuses would endanger the safety of our students, faculty and staff,” Boren said. “Every single day, I think about my responsibilities as president of a university for the safety of those on our campus. We have spent large sums of money to develop rapid communication systems and highly trained law enforcement personnel to take action in emergency situations. To allow other people to have guns who have not trained with our police units would create chaos in a crisis situation.”

While he acknowledged he wasn’t surprised by swift movement of HB 2513, Sen. John Sparks, D-Norman, said he “really didn’t expect” the measure to survive the Senate.

“Honestly, I don’t think the bill will make it to the floor,” Sparks said late last week. “The best thing for everyone involved would be if it died here.”

However, on Friday, during a breakfast meeting sponsored by the Norman Chamber of Commerce, Sparks said he was leaning against the bill but would take “a wait and see approach” to view the bill’s final language.

“I don’t think it will happen this year,” he said. “As a practical matter, I don’t see it happening this year. It’s happened too fast.”

Rep. Scott Martin, R-Norman, who voted in favor of the bill, told chamber members that the law would narrowly define who could carry a gun on campus.

He also said the shootings at Virginia Tech last year and Northern Illinois this year showed police can’t always respond in time.

“The police were too late,” Martin said. “People were already dead by the time the police got there.”

Murphey, the bill’s author, said the proposal was a “common sense step” to expand Oklahoma’s concealed weapons law to combat campus violence.

“I don’t know what could be safer for the students than having our men and women in the military to defend them if something went down,” Murphey said Friday. “I wish there would have been someone that could have been armed in Illinois.”

It’s not sound public policy, he said, “to have a bubble around campuses, where criminals can penetrate.”

Rep. Mike Shelton, D-Oklahoma City, blasted the proposal when it passed the House, saying such a law would drive students away from Oklahoma's colleges.

“I believe families, faced with the prospect of a gun-toting campus, will choose to send their children elsewhere, particularly out-of-state students who would otherwise come to Oklahoma," Shelton said. "That will harm our efforts to produce college graduates and boost economic development in Oklahoma in the long run.

“This is ridiculous," the lawmaker said. "Recently it seems some Oklahoma legislators are working hard to send a bad message to the rest of the world about Oklahoma and this bill continues that pattern.”



M. Scott Carter writes for The Norman (Okla.) Transcript. Transcript Managing Editor Andy Rieger contributed to this story.

        

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