An armed campus? Protestors seek right to carry concealed guns

by Grace Moore, Richard Grunert

“People are responsible for their own safety,” said Karl Rollin, head of Western’s concealed carry chapter. “It’s about having the right mindset.”

Arizona, Texas and nine other states ... currently [have] legislation in the works that would allow firearms on their campuses.

Now, only four states; Colorado, Michigan, Utah and Virginia, allow people with concealed carry licenses to bring guns onto their public universities, according to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

Because of the qualifications needed to obtain a gun license, such as being 21, only about one percent of [the] population would carry if given the chance, Rollin said, so he thinks guns on campus would not be a drastic change.

“It’s not about guns,” Rollin said. “It’s about personal safety.”

The fact that people would know guns were around would act as a crime deterrent, Rollin said.

After the Virginia Tech Massacre, Bradford Wiles, a graduate research assistant at the time, wrote an op-ed in the Virginia Tech school newspaper in support of concealed campus carry.

“If just one person in Norris Hall had a gun to defend himself or his classmates from an armed attacker, lives could have been saved,” Wiles wrote.

The Students for Concealed Carry on Campus’s website agrees with Wiles and said the Virginia Tech massacre may have been prevented if someone had been able to carry a concealed weapon that day.

Unlike other firearm websites, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus does not quote the Second Amendment.

Instead, Rollin said the group is about taking responsibility for your safety, whether that’s turning your iPod down when you walk across campus or carrying a gun.

http://westernfrontonline.net/news/13271-an-armed-campus-protestors-seek-right-to-carry-concealed-guns