New student group wants right to carry guns on campus

This is just common sense:


New student group
wants right to carry guns on campus
MUNCIE --
Should a campus shooting ever happen at Ball State University,
Blake Graham wants the right to protect himself by firing back.

The junior criminal justice major, who just recently applied for
a gun permit, is the president of a new student group called
Ball State Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, which drew
about 10 people -- mostly permit holders -- to its first meeting
this month. The group is a local branch of a national organization,
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.

"We feel that it's our right that we need to be able to protect ourselves," Graham said.

The local activity comes in the wake of mass killings in February
at Northern Illinois University, where six students were slain
in a lecture hall, and the April 2007 shooting spree at Virginia
Tech that claimed 33 lives.

It was the Virginia Tech shooting that led David Barker,
the founder of Ball State Students for Concealed Carry on Campus
and now a BSU alumnus, to organize the group last spring.

"I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the
shooting at Virginia Tech happened. It's kind of one of those
9/11 moments," he said. "It struck me so emotionally
to sit here and feel like I do now and do nothing, what good does
that do for society?"

To Barker, the most logical thing to do was to fight for the right
to carry firearms on campus, so that if anyone set out to launch
a killing spree at Ball State, someone might be able to stop a
tragedy from happening.

The idea, he said, is counterintuitive.

"The last thing we would think as a solution to this violence would
be more guns," Barker said. "As it turns out, scientifically it's mind-
boggling, but against all odds we find that introducing more guns
somehow magically makes gun violence go down."

To Paul Chandler, the group's faculty advisor and an associate
professor in the Department of Natural Resources and
Environmental Management, not allowing those with legal permits
to carry on campus is just inviting a tragedy at Ball State.

"The events of about a year or so ago at Virginia Tech
demonstrated that gun-free zones amount to spree-killer welcome
zones and had someone had a firearm in Blacksburg, Va., you
might not have had 30-some students killed," he said.

But carrying guns on campus is against Ball State University policy.
University code states that weapons, including firearms, are
prohibited on Ball State property, "whether (a person) is licensed
to carry the weapon or not."

And legislation introduced last January before the Indiana General
Assembly -- House Bill 158, which would prohibit state
universities from regulating firearms -- failed to pass in this year's session.

Despite the lack of support from the university and state
legislators, Graham and others from Concealed Carry on Campus
will continue to fight for a bill that would provide them with
the freedom they want. Because not only do they believe it could
it prevent a tragedy like the one at Virginia Tech, they say it is
also their constitutional right.

"The Second Amendment does not stop at the boundary of Ball
State University," Chandler said.

But the idea of students carrying guns on campus is frightening to
many students, even though background checks are required for
permit holders and the group says they are "normal, everyday
people" and "law-abiding citizens."

"If you want to have guns on public, city property that's fine,
but not on campus," freshman Cameron Thompson said.
"Yeah, they have a license, but they could be stressed out,
they could be the ones that cause Virginia Tech or something.
They could create the chance."

Junior J. Harris said he could see both sides of the issue.

"I actually have a permit to carry myself, I just don't. There's
really no reason," J. Harris, a former U.S. Marine, said. "You can't
prevent tragedy from happening just by show of force... People
are going to do what they're going to do. Could it have been
minimized? Possibly. But at the same time, it could have been made worse."

Instead, Harris suggested authorities should "let (students) carry,
just not concealed, so at least people know."

But when permit holders in Indiana are already allowed to carry
guns off campus, Chandler said those who want separate rules on
campus are "hypocritical."

"If a student is worried about someone on campus being armed,
then they should never leave campus because lots of people off
campus are armed. And so if they do leave campus, then their
view of people on campus being armed is somewhat
hypocritical," he said.

Barker said he just hopes people will take the time to weigh both
sides of the issue.

"If you just give someone five minutes of you're time,
you'll be surprised by the kinds of changes in thought
you'll be experiencing," he said. [emphasis added by David]