Coastal Carolina dorm shooting raises question: Should coeds pack heat?
A shooting Tuesday at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C., left one student dead. Although campus shootings are rare, the incident rekindles a debate on whether to permit guns on campus.
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Statistically speaking rampages like the one at Virginia Tech “almost never happen,” says Langman.
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“However the risk of students failing and being dumped is an everyday reality,” he adds. “Having everyone walk around with guns is not going to deter a rampage, it is going to result in people using guns when they have a bad day, flunk a test, someone dumps them, or they’re just not thinking clearly. It’s more likely to lead to other kinds of gun violence.”
Mueller, of Students for Concealed Carry, dismisses those arguments, insisting proponents of concealed carry aren’t trying to arm all students, simply allow those who have gun licenses to bring firearms to campus.
“We’re not trying to change who can carry, we’re trying to change where they can carry,” says Mueller. “People who already have licenses, who are already 21 years of age, who already carry in grocery stores and Wal-Marts and other places – if these people were as volatile as the opposition suggest, one would suspect they would be volatile in all these places they go.”
He points to Colorado State University, which began allowing guns on campus in 2003.
“There’s never been an incident there where a student operated a firearm in a wanton, negligent way as people suggest,” he says, adding that campus crime, including sexual assault, has actually gone down since the university began allowing concealed carry.
In recent years, campus shootings have led several state legislatures to introduce bills allowing guns on campus. Two years ago only one state allowed concealed carry at public institutions. Today five states, including Colorado, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah, and Wisconsin, have laws allowing concealed carry at public colleges and universities.
The remaining states split into two groups, according to a Wall Street Journal report based on data from the National Conference of State Legislatures: Some 24 states, which leave gun policy to individual universities, and 21 states that ban concealed weapons on campus.
In those remaining 45 states the debate over whether to allow guns on campus – amplified in the aftermath of shootings like those at Coastal Carolina University and Lone Star College – rages on.
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