Students say 'No guns on campus'

By Mike Hasten
mhasten@gannett.com
BATON ROUGE — Legislation allowing anyone with a concealed handgun permit to carry a loaded weapon on state college and university campuses is to be heard Wednesday in a House committee.

Law enforcement agencies, college and university officials and several students are to testify against HB413 by Rep. Ernest Wooton, I-Belle Chasse, a former sheriff and chairman of the House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice that will hear the bill.

Also testifying against the proposal will be Colin Goddard, a survivor of being shot four times by Seung Hui Cho who killed 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty members before he fatally shot himself.

"I don't think the way to deal with campus shootings is to have more shots fired," said Goddard, a 2008 Virginia Tech graduate who now works with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Goddard said the proponents of the bills around the country always argue, "We don't want another Virginia Tech happening" but they allow guns to be purchased at gun shows and from private sellers without doing a background check. "That doesn't provide safety for anyone."

Guns shouldn't be allowed on campuses because "college campuses are unique places," he said. For many, it's a place for "major life-changing experiences and having guns does not promote a safe environment for those changes."

College campuses are always safer places than the communities that surround them, Goddard said, and having guns there is "going to make the days when there aren't shootings more dangerous."

Answering Wooton's claim that only trained gun owners who have taken safety and gun-handling classes to earn a permit would be allowed to carry handguns, Goddard points out that Louisiana has cooperative agreements with other states, including Virginia, that honor their permits.

"Virginia doesn't require that you ever shoot a gun to get a license," he said.

Joining Goddard will be Kaamil Khan, an LSU Law School student who was attending Virginia Tech at the time of the shooting.

"Personally, I don't think it would make campuses safer," he said. "I was there at Virginia Tech. I don't think having a gun would have made a difference."

Members of Students for Concealed Carry have testified in favor of similar legislation offered by Wooton and are expected at the committee.

They joined the author in arguing that if students and faculty members were armed on the campuses where innocent students were gunned down, the attackers would not have had so many victims. They also say it would be a deterrent for anyone to come on campus to shoot students if other people were armed.

Wooton got his bill out of committee in 2009 and 2010 but dropped it when it ran into overwhelming opposition on the House floor. He pledged last year "I'll be back."
The House is a much more conservative body since then. There's a Republicans majority for the first time since Reconstruction.

HB413 prohibits the governing body of a public college or university or postsecondary vocational-technical school from establishing rules or regulations limiting the ability of a person issued a concealed handgun permit to lawfully carry a concealed handgun.
It does not apply to private schools.

The bill authorizes management boards to establish rules or regulations relating to the storage of firearms on campus.


The Texas Senate approved a similar proposal. But since it was attached to legislation dealing with fiscal matters, the House sent the bill back to strip the gun portion because the state constitution prohibits having two objects in the same bill.

The session ended Monday without a bill being approved.

Arizona this year passed a law allowing permit holders to have guns in their cars and to carry them on sidewalks on college campuses. However, guns cannot be taken into building on campuses.

http://www.thenewsstar.com/print/article/20110601/NEWS01/106010324/Students-say-No-guns-campus-