In the wake of numerous campus shootings across the nation, the most recent being the mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, state governments are now considering passing legislation about whether to or not permit concealed firearms on college campuses.
According to NCSL.org in 2013, only 19 states brought forward bills of some fashion that would permit concealed carry on campuses. The following year 14 additional state legislations proposed similar bills. Two of those bills were successful in passing, one in neighboring Kansas and the other in Arkansas. The concealed carry bill in Kansas however, does have specific guidelines as to when it is appropriate to carry a firearm on school property. If the school building was to show “adequate security measures” than the student would be prohibited from carrying. If the school was found to demonstrate poor security measures, then the student could freely carry a concealed weapon on the premise.
The bill that was passed in Arkansas limits only faculty with the right to carry on campus. Just this past year, the state of Texas became the most recent state to permit concealed carry weapons on college campuses, in their case there were no regulations present. Thus anyone with a concealed carry permit was allowed to be armed on campus. The decision to regulate firearms on campus did fall to the discretion of each individual college and university.
Each school determined what locations on campuses were safe to be armed and others that were deemed sensitive areas where concealed weapons would be prohibited. At the end of the day, some see these bills as a solution in stopping gun related violence on college campuses. For others they see having tightening restrictions as the answer in order to stop these mass acts of violence. Only time will tell if Missouri becomes the next state to pass a new conceal carry bill.
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