I absolutely believe that all students should be given the right to defend themselves. First off, a campus is an arbitrary boundary; on one side of a road, you can defend yourself – on another, you cannot. Imagine if the entire country operated in this fashion.

Utah is the only state that requires campuses to recognize CPLs. In all other states, students are disarmed. The fear is that, somehow, students are more volatile than other CPL-holders, and are more likely to “snap.” The larger debate over CPL-rights has proven this belief to be false.

Opponents also claim that police responding to a mass shooting would be confused and simply shoot everyone with a gun in sight. However, the majority of gunfights are over extremely quickly, and far sooner than even your best police response time. If a CPL-holder confronted a shooter bent on mass murder, the incident would be over before the police arrived, and the CPL holder may have saved the lives of many.

As you certainly know, you cannot carry a firearm under the influence. Some complain that guns and alcohol don’t mix. Of course they don’t. But if you ban guns from a campus on those grounds, you’d be obliged to ban cars as well.

However, the debate always comes back to one fact. A responsible, law-abiding citizen should never be disarmed; the only possible exceptions are courtrooms and airplanes, where metal detectors hopefully ensure your safety. However, there are no metal detectors to stop criminals from robbing gun free students as they walk home through a dark parking lot after a late night of studying.

Please visit our website at http://www.concealedcampus.org. We’re always looking for donations – no matter what size – or any volunteer help.

Reid Smith