Gun laws draw protest
Posted on Sunday, April 27, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/224004/
Travis Robinson wasn’t alone last week as he toted his empty holster around campus.
The junior at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville was among college students around the country who engaged in a subtle form of organized protest.
Robinson and others believe people with state licenses to carry concealed weapons shouldn’t have that privilege halted once they step on campus.
“An assumption people have is, they think we want everybody to be packing AK-47 s. That’s not the case,” said Robinson, 21, a criminal justice and sociology major from Clarksville.
Robinson said he went through a rigorous, lengthy process to get his Arkansas certification and license last fall, which included a background check and fingerprinting.
“We just want students that have a concealed-and-carry permit, and who can legally carry off-campus, to be able to carry on-campus.”
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus touts itself as a national, nonpartisan group with 25, 000 members. Ninety percent of its members are college students and the rest are faculty, parents and “concerned citizens.”
The group contends that mass shootings such as the one at Virginia Tech in April 2007 “make it abundantly clear that ‘gun-free zones’ serve to disarm only those law-abiding citizens who might be able to mitigate such tragedies,” according to its Web site, www. concealedcampus. org.
The idea behind the emptyholster protest was to stir discussion. There was no central protest event.
Instead, students were asked to attend classes April 21-25 wearing their empty holsters in protest of state laws and school policies that disarm those who are licensed to carry concealed handguns.
Robinson described the empty holsters as a way to prompt questions.
When people asked protesters about it, they responded by describing their views on the concealed-carry issue and brandishing a flier from a backpack. It wasn’t intended as a hard sell, he said.
“We simply want to educate and spread awareness,” Robinson said.
Although it appeared there was some confusion in Arkansas concerning whether it was OK to stuff fliers into the holsters, the group posted protest guidelines online instructing participants to leave them empty — preferably with any flaps pinned open to make clear there was no gun.
UA SHOOTINGS Lt. Gary Crain, spokesman for the UA Police Department, said state law prohibits possession of handguns on campus or in any campus buildings. He said he believes any change in the law to make exceptions for conceal-carry on campuses would produce problems outweighing the benefits. “The odds of that student being in the right place at the right time are so small,” Crain said of the possibility an armed student could defend himself or others against an attack.
The Fayetteville campus was the scene of an August 2000 murder-suicide in which a graduate student shot a professor in his office. Campus police arrived to find the door locked and tried to talk the assailant into surrendering before he turned the gun on himself.
In January 1981, a UAPD officer fatally shot a 19-year-old student after he burst into a sorority house waving a shotgun and threatening to shoot into a crowd of about 100 people.
Besides Robinson at UA-Fayetteville, the national group’s Web site listed students or other representatives serving as “campus leaders” at seven other colleges in the state, both public and private.
John Brown University in Siloam Springs wasn’t listed, but it had some holster-carrying students last week.
Andrew “Arthur” Barrett Summers of Katy, Texas, estimated he was among about a dozen JBU students who participated. He received an invitation via the Web networking site Facebook and forwarded it to others.
Summers, 21, a junior majoring in computer science and engineering, said he’s saving money to buy a firearm and will apply for a concealed-carry license after he owns a gun.
“It is a means of self-defense and crime prevention until police arrive,” he said. “Concealedcarry is a necessary right that should not be stripped away at campus borders.”
Marcus Naramore, 22, a senior marketing major at JBU, said the prospect of gun-toting students without law enforcement training conjures scenarios he’d rather not contemplate.
“[It ] reminds me of a Wild West shootout,” said Naramore, who said he hails from “superconservative,” hunting-savvy Gillette, Wyo.
He said he’s “definitely not anti-gun.” Naramore wondered if it be a good idea for someone with a short fuse, who might do something they’d regret, to carry a concealed weapon.
“It wouldn’t even have to be shooting, just people pulling guns all the time,” he said. “Doesn’t sound like a campus I would want to be part of.”
And campuses frequently have all kinds of horseplay and other possibilities for misunderstandings, he said.
“It’s human nature that we always make assumptions about people, and there are always people who give us the creeps,” Naramore said. “But what if someone like that starts rushing toward us, and that person is harmless ?” Summers said he’s heard arguments that the presence of weapons will disrupt classes. “That is the point of the word ‘concealed, ’” he said.
AROUND THE STATE At Harding University in Searcy, campus protest leader Peyton T. Murphy of Imboden said his school hasn’t started a local chapter of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, but there are students there who want to see the law changed.
“Although gun-free policies often make people feel safer, it isn’t necessarily the case, as Virginia Tech and other campus shootings have shown,” Murphy said. “If a permit holder had been on the premises... the playing field would have definitely been leveled a bit.”
Concealed-carry permits allow holders to do so in most locations, he said. “These licensees’ right to carry should not be infringed just because they are on a college campus.”
Students representing other schools — Jessica Crociata at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro and Rosalio Longoria at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith — said their involvement with Students for Concealed Carry on Campus is in the early stages.
Chris Steelman, a junior at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, said he joined Students for Concealed Carry on Campus as soon as the Virginia Tech shooting happened, and he became his school chapter’s leader a month or two after.
“Mass shootings get the most media coverage, but this is not the only reason why I want to be able to carry,” he said. “The probability of being assaulted or robbed is higher.”
His campus’ Facebook group has about 80 people who support the cause and another 10-15 who want to participate in the national group, so Steelman plans to work this summer to start an official local chapter.
Since the group enjoys no official recognition by his university, it is not allowed to place fliers around campus, he said, and he estimated that just a few students protested last week.
“We do not have any opponents here yet, but when we become more vocal around campus, I expect to receive some opposition,” Steelman said.