House passes bill to allow guns on campus
BOISE (AP) - The Idaho House approved a bill Wednesday that would allow firearms on public university and college campuses.
The House voted 41-28 on the legislation from Republican state Rep. Erik Simpson. It would prohibit schools from banning firearms, either carried openly or by people with concealed weapons permits, anywhere on campus except in undergraduate residence halls. Guns would be allowed at athletic events.
Idaho law now gives university and college presidents authority to prohibit firearms on campus. Boise State University, Idaho State University, the University of Idaho, Lewis-Clark State College and several community colleges throughout the state have adopted their own regulations to prohibit guns on campus.
Texas lawmakers are also considering legislation to allow college students and professors to carry guns on campus, adding momentum to a national campaign to open this part of society to firearms. It would become the second state, following Utah, to pass such a broad-based law. Colorado gives colleges the option, and several have allowed handguns.
Simpson, a two-term state lawmaker from Idaho Falls, says his legislation would increase safety at the state's four public universities and community colleges because letting students, faculty or others carry guns heightens the chances they could help prevent a violent crime.
"It is a basic human right to protect yourself from those who intend to do you harm," Simpson said.
The legislation was advanced to the full House despite opposition from Idaho's public universities and the state Board of Education. The measure cleared the House with support from one Democrat, state Rep. Grant Burgoyne of Boise, and 40 of the 57 Republicans in the GOP-dominated chamber. It now goes to the Senate.
Supporters argue campus gun violence, such as the 2007 mass shootings at Virginia Tech, show the best defense against a gunman is students who can shoot back in defense.
"We need to do everything that we can to prevent a Virginia Tech type tragedy on the campuses of the institutions of higher learning in the state of Idaho," said state Rep. Brent Crane, a three-term Republican from Nampa who supported the legislation.
Opponents argued allowing firearms at universities would only accelerate conflict and leave students and faculty in fear, not knowing who might pull a gun over a poor grade, a broken romance, a drunken fraternity argument, or an altercation at a football game.
"This is not the wild, wild West. This is academia in Idaho," said state Rep. Phylis King, a three-term lawmaker from Boise.
Rep. Wendy Jaquet, D-Ketchum, told lawmakers she had received a letter opposing the Idaho legislation from Lori Haas, whose daughter Emily Haas was injured in the Virginia Tech shootings. In an e-mail, Haas said her daughter and other survivors have opposed similar efforts to allow firearms on campus in Arizona and Texas
Haas provided a letter signed by survivors and family members of the deceased and injured.
"We have all replayed the events of April 16, 2007 over and over in our heads," the letter read. "It was the most intense, stressful, and chaotic situation we had ever experienced and not one of us is advocating for guns on campus; adding more people with more guns would only have made our situation crazier and more dangerous."