Campus Safer Without Guns, Lawmakers Told

Professor: ‘If It Ain’t Broke Don’t Fix It’

— An Arkansas college or university student is 72 times less likely to be criminally killed on campus than the U.S. average for college students, lawmakers were told Friday.

“I’m a believer in the ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ doctrine,” said Stephen K. Boss, a geosciences professor at the university, who presented the figures at a lawmaker’s forum hosted Friday by the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce.

A bill before legislators would allow university faculty and staff who have concealed carry permits to bring their guns to campus. Figures from the U.S. Department of Justice and the federal Department of Education for the past 10 years show allowing guns on campus to discourage school shootings would address an almost nonexistent safety issue, opponents said.

Boss was one of at least 120 people in the forum audience, a crowd that spilled over from the chamber conference area into a second room. Discussion of gun bill, House Bill 1243 by Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, took up at least 40 minutes of the hourlong forum.

The forum began at 4 p.m., hours after a university student accidentally shot himself in the hand with a gun he brought to the university’s radio station. No one in the audience spoke in favor of the bill.

“Why is there this lack of trust of your own colleagues on campus?” asked state Sen. Jon Woods, R-Springdale.

The issue isn’t one of trust or lack of trust for any one person, but of whether it’s wise or desirable to increase the number of guns on campus, several audience members replied.

“We’ve had one shooting in 137 years,” not counting accidents, said Bailey Mendenhall of Fayetteville.

“Safety should be left to the University Police Department,” Mendenhall said. “Guys, that’s their job.”

Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Gravette, said he voted against the original bill that allowed concealed carry when he was a state House member 15 years ago. He believed the bill didn’t have enough training for permit holders and it would lead to accidental shootings. Those fears never materialized, he said.

“It’s easy to get angry about this and forget we have the same goal — to not have any more school shootings,” Hendren said.

Bill sponsor Collins was scheduled to appear at the forum but was delayed, in part because of an appearance at the University of Central Arkansas over the same issue, Woods announced during the meeting. Several members arrived late because the House was in session in Little Rock on Friday morning.

“My base position is: Guns don’t have any business being on campus,” said state Sen. Uvalde Lindsey, whose district includes the university.

According to Boss’ figures, the rate for “murder and non-negligent manslaughter” on U.S. college and university campuses is “785 times lower” than for the public at-large. The rate in Arkansas is “72 times lower than that at U.S. colleges and universities.

“Colleges and universities in the United States are among the safest refuges from murder and non-negligent manslaughter, and Arkansas colleges and universities are among the safest in the United States,” Boss said.

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