Once in Effect, Campus Carry quickly Becomes a Non-Issue

University of Virginia

Campus carry exists when students can legally carry guns on university and college campus premises. The practice quickly becomes a non-issue, according to police chief James Terry of Marshall University in West Virginia. West Virginia is scheduled to join eleven other states where carry on campus by permit holders has been restored as a matter of law. West Virginia is scheduled to implement campus carry on July 1, 2024. From dominionpost.com:

Marshall University Police Chief James Terry said the Action Learning Team is comprised of a cross section of all campus stakeholders and meets every two weeks on the issue. Terry said because the law is something new, they started by talking to people from campuses that have campus carry in place. The coverage determined the law was a concern on campus and was diminished a short time after becoming law.

“They talked to every school that has campus carry in effect right now, and they identified no issues, and they also said within six months to a year it’s a non-issue,” Terry said. “Now, we’ll see if that’s the
case in West Virginia.”

With the restoration of the right to bear arms in most of the United States, many states have removed infringements on the right to carry arms on college and university campus grounds, or recognized the infringements were not legal.  The states which have removed infringements, or ruled them to be illegal occurred in the following order:

Utah 2006,  Colorado 2010  Oregon 2011  Wisconsin 2011  Mississippi 2012  Idaho 2014 Tennessee 2016,  Arkansas 2017,  Georgia 2017,  Kansas 2017, and Texas 2017.

Those eleven states represent about 457 institutions of higher learning and approximately four million students, for between 4 and 17 years worth of experience where the ability to carry handguns on campus has been restored. During that time, there hasn't been a single case of a violent crime committed by a concealed permit holder on campus, which appears in the literature.  People have searched for such incidents. The literature indicates removing obstacles to the carry of firearms at universities has no measurable effect. Students for Concealed Carry shows no deaths, assaults, or suicides had been associated with campus carry as of 2018.

One of the earliest restrictions on being armed in America was a ban on students at the University of Virginia, from having weapons on campus in 1824. Students were also forbidden to have sticks, wine or spirits, servants, horses, or dogs, or to use tobacco.  The restriction did not apply to the public or staff of the school. The university did not start classes until 1825.  The rule makers seem to have been more concerned with students spending time on non-academic subjects when they could have been studying. The University of Virginia was an outlier.

Universities in America have tended to be slightly hostile to armed citizens, or to armed people in general. Most universities were created based on Christian foundations. There have often been tensions between
those with skill at arms academics who focus on textual subjects.

Over the last 50 years, the Left has infiltrated and taken over the administration of most American universities. Most of the hostility to campus carry appears to be ideological and emotional. College administrators do not want campus carry because they do not want campus carry.  Phrases are used, such as: I would not feel safe. I would be worried. There is no proof it will make us safer.

The implicit argument of authoritarians is: everything which is not allowed is forbidden. 

The American legal philosophy is: Everything not forbidden is allowed.

All of the hand-wringing and pleas to emotion are forgotten six months to a year after campus carry is implemented.

©2023 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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