As lawmakers in nine states debate whether to permit licensed gun owners to carry concealed weapons on college campuses, administrators at two of the nation’s largest institutions — in Georgia and Texas — oppose the legislation.
Hank Huckaby, chancellor of the University System of Georgia and Francisco G. Cigarroa, chancellor of the University of Texas System, who represent more than 500,000 students, pushed back against the proposed legislations in speeches and letters to elected officials.
Cigarroa told Texas Governor Rick Perry in a letter last week that he had conducted informal surveys with students, staff and law enforcement and reached the conclusion that allowing concealed weapons on college campuses would “make the campus environment less safe.”
Campus police might find it difficult to distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys if guns are visible during an incident, Cigarroa said.
A week earlier, Huckaby, a licensed gun holder, appeared before the Georgia House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee. “Guns don’t frighten me and I do not demonize them or their owners,” Huckaby said. “I believe in the Second Amendment. … My experience tells me that for our students, the availability of guns will not increase their safety.”
Huckaby said campus police chiefs say that “allowing students to have weapons on campus makes their jobs harder, not easier; more dangerous, not safer.”
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan group, 49 out of 50 states have concealed carry weapons laws. Currently, there are 21 states that ban carrying a concealed weapon on a college campus: Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.
