A University of Arkansas at Fayetteville student shot himself in the hand Friday with a revolver illegally taken into a university building, campus police said.

The student accidentally discharged the firearm around 12:30 p.m. in a break room at radio station KUAFFM 91.3, which is on university property a few blocks from the main campus, said Lt. Matt Mills, a spokesman for campus police.

“He brought it in a backpack, and then he was showing it to somebody, and that’s when it went off,” Mills said.

The shooting happened hours after university professor Sidney Burris announced he and others had formed Arkansans Against Guns on Campus, a group that emerged from an online petition started by Burris that opposed concealed carry of handguns on campus.

Also Friday, State Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, said he plans to introduce a bill in the House Education Committee on Tuesday that would permit people with concealed-carry permits to take weapons on school campuses.

Burris said he expects the student’s accident will come up as his group speaks out against changing the law, which now prohibits guns anywhere on a school campus, regardless of whether aperson has a concealed-carry permit.

“Of course, the only details I have are what you can find online,” Burris said of Friday’s shooting. “But yeah, I think it’s a matter of concern to anybody who is concerned about guns on campus.”

The student who carried the gun was the only person hurt in Friday’s shooting, and Mills didn’t have information on the severity of his injury. He said that the revolver, capable of firing both .45-caliber bullets and shotgun shells, had discharged.

“It’s called a Taurus Judge, and it chambers both a .45 long-Colt round and a .410 shotgun shell,” Mills said of the weapon. Though the student had the weapon loadedwith both, the .410 shell “is what he shot himself with,” Mills said.

As of late Friday afternoon, university police hadn’t released the name of the student, who has a work-study assignment in the KUAF building, Mills said.

The student wasn’t arrested Friday, and university police had not finished a report it will forward to the Washington County prosecuting attorney’s office recommending that charges be filed, Mills said.

“The charge would be possession of a handgun on school property,” he said, which is covered under Arkansas Code Annotated 5-73-119.

Police received a call about the shooting at 12:36 p.m., Mills said. “As soon as he shot himself, a friend called 911,” he said.

In a news release Friday from Arkansans Against Guns on Campus, Burris said a petition he posted Jan. 28 had gathered 1,400 signatures.

By mid-afternoon, that had increased to about 1,500 signatures, he said.

The group is targeting Collins’ House Bill 1243, which would allow faculty and staff of Arkansas public universities who have concealed-carry permits to carry weapons on their own campus.

Collins said Friday afternoon that while he understands the group’s concerns, the scenarios it says it fears would not be changed by his bill - and that includes Friday’s shooting on the Fayetteville campus.

No student would be allowed to carry a concealedweapon on campus under his bill, Collins said, regardless of whether he had a concealedcarry permit.

In fall 2010, when he first ran for the state legislature, Collins said, one of the ideas he said he would pursue was allowing people with concealed-carry permits to take weapons on state college campuses.

But the feedback he received persuaded him to scale back the proposal. Some of that feedback included the idea that students are prone to depression, “grade rage” and binge drinking and shouldn’t have access to weapons, he said.

“That’s why I eliminated students entirely,” Collins said in a telephone interview.

In fact, he said, his bill would forbid faculty and staff with concealed-carry permits from storing any of their weapons in dormitories.

They could only carry them into dorms on their person, he said.

Many scenarios opponents imagine, Collins said, such as “active shooters” intent on killing many people, are precisely the reason he believes people with concealed-carry permits and weapons should be allowed on campuses.

“The question is, why are there so many instances where crazy people kill people on college campuses?” Collins said. The answer, he said, is that people who want to make a name for themselves by killing innocent people see campuses and their “gun-free zones” as easy targets.

“While I can’t promise there would never be an accident, no one can promise there will never be another school shooting,” he said.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 02/09/2013