Proposal Lets Schools Vote On Gun-Carry

Colleges Could Opt-Out

State Rep. Charlie Collins said he was working Monday on an amendment for his “professor-carry” gun bill that would allow public colleges and universities to annually opt-out should it pass the Arkansas Legislature.

State law prohibits guns on Arkansas college campuses, even by people who hold state concealed-carry permits.

The overall intent of HB1243, which Collins, R - Fayetteville, plans to introduce today in the House Education Committee, is to make exceptions for faculty and staff with concealed carry permits to carry guns at the campus where they work. It would not allow students and visitors to do the same, however.

The bill’s original language contained a provision allowing a private college or university to opt-out, Collins said.

His amendment would give a public campus that same choice by allowing its board of trustees or other governing body to decide each year whether to ban concealed-carry on its campus, Collins said.

“Public university boards of trustees, in an annual majority-vote, have the ability to opt-out of professor-carry,” Collins said, summing up his amendment Monday in a telephone interview.

He said the opting-out provision is consistent with a legal opinion issued in 2003 by the Arkansas attorney general’s office.

On Monday, Gov. Mike Beebe said he wants to speak with university chancellors and presidents before he weighs in on the bill.

“We owe it to college and university folks to get their input before we make any public [statements] on it,” Beebe said, speaking to reporters after appearing before the Arkansas County Judges Association.

On Wednesday, UA-Fayetteville campus’ faculty senate will consider a resolution asking the Legislature to “make no changes to current policy” regarding concealed weapons on Arkansas campuses.

The draft resolution says it is in step with UA Chancellor G. David Gearhart’s signature on a letter circulating among U.S. university presidents and chancellors by College Presidents for Gun Safety. On Feb. 4, The Washington Post reported that 350 of 4,150 college leaders had signed the letter, which began after the mass school shooting in Newtown, Conn. in December.

Also Monday, campus police confirmed the identity of Matthew Williamson, a University of Arkansas at Fayetteville student who shot himself in the hand Friday afternoon in a university-owned building near campus. On Friday, university police said it planned to recommend that the prosecuting attorney file charges against the UA work-study student who accidentally discharged a revolver illegally taken into a campus building.

The firearm went off about 12:30 p.m. Friday in a break room at KUAF-FM, 91.3, the university’s radio station.

The student took the Taurus Judge handgun out of his backpack to show it to someone, and it went off, police said Friday. The student was taken to Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville with non-life-threatening injuries, and campus police didn’t release his name Friday.

Campus police normally don’t release the name of a person it has not yet arrested but plans to pursue criminal charges against him before it has forwarded its report to the prosecutor, Lt. Gary Crain, its spokesman, said Monday.

“If it’s an active investigation, and the prosecutor has not seen the report, we wouldn’t release it,” he said.

But Crain said that after he learned late Saturday that Williamson had identified himself on social media, and later, in television interviews, he saw no problem with confirming his identity.

“He released it. He released it himself,” Crain said. He estimated the campus police report would go to the prosecutor sometime this week.

Shortly after 3:30 p.m. Monday, Washington County Prosecuting Attorney John Threet said his office has been in communication with campus police about the case, but he had not yet received the report.

Attempts to contact Williamson on Monday at the hospital and by e-mail were unsuccessful.

A spokesman for Washington Regional, Gina Maddox, said Monday that Williamson wasn’t listed as a patient. However, she said there’s no way for her to know whether that meant he’d been released from the hospital or had invoked the federal patient privacy act.

Friday’s shooting happened a few hours after UA professor Sidney Burris announced Friday morning that an online petition he started had morphed into a group called Arkansans Against Guns on Campus.

Collins had said Friday afternoon that while he could understand the group’s concerns, his bill would not have changed what happened Friday. That’s because his bill would neither legalize student possession of guns on college campuses, nor would it allow permit-holding students carry concealed weapons on the campuses.

On Monday, Collins cited the 2003 attorney general’s opinion and his bill’s chance of passage when asked why he’s amending it.

“In order to pass my law, I need to make sure I get majorities on my vote,” he said.

Though he can’t predict the outcome, Collins said. “With this change, I’m feeling very bullish on the vote tomorrow. ... Prior to this change, I wasn’t as confident I would have a good vote.”

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Information for this article was contributed by Sarah Wire of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 02/12/2013

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