Brenda Blagg: Finding solace

Unnerving gun legislation awaits final set of training rules

Concealed carry of weapons on public college campuses moved a shade closer to legality in Arkansas this week.

The state is slowly marching toward implementation of the legislation that was so ardently pushed by state Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville.

The whole idea of guns on campus is still unpopular with a lot of people, including many in law enforcement, who worry about unintended consequences.

But Collins, with strong backing from the National Rifle Association, finally got his way this year as state lawmakers approved the legislation.

The version that won approval requires an enhanced training program for concealed-carry license holders who want to carry on campus and in some other places where they could not previously carry.

The Arkansas State Police must design the training program within 120 days of the law going into effect, which happened on Sept. 1.

This week's posting of the first draft of the program on the state police website kicks off its review. The proposed rule changes are online at asp.arkansas.gov/publications/.

What follows is a 30-day period in which the agency will accept public comments on the guidelines.

All of this presupposes a potential rewrite of parts of the program and at least a little more time to get it finalized.

Only then will licensed firearms instructors be able to develop and offer the eight-hour courses for enhanced-carry permit holders.

So we're still a good ways off from the day anyone can take the course and qualify for an enhanced permit.

That's good news for those of us uneasy with the prospect of guns on campus in the hands of anyone other than law enforcement.

Still, another reality is coming.

Eventually, like it or not, qualifying individuals will take the course, get the enhanced license and carry their guns to school lawfully.

Charlie Collins' argument has always been that knowing some people are packing, even if the weapons are concealed, will somehow deter would-be mass killers from attacking a given college campus.

Surely, those who bother to get the enhanced training will be better equipped to respond to what the proposed rules call "emergent situations," including mass shootings, than they would be without the training.

As it stands now, applicants would get six hours of study on gun safety and firearms law and two hours of training on a gun range with three chances to pass a live-fire proficiency test.

Is that enough?

If the worst happened, how would responding law enforcement officers know a good guy or girl with a gun from a bad guy with a gun?

As the state police major who oversees the licensing of handguns put it, an officer won't immediately know whether someone is good or bad.

It's one of the many points that law enforcement people tried to make during hearings on the legislation. They also stressed that training for law enforcement officers never ends.

Yet, these new permit holders will presumably be ready after eight hours of additional training?

Some surely will be. Maybe they already have extensive firearms experience, including some kind of background in the serve-and-protect business.

But what about the others who might have little more than the required eight hours of training to back up their carrying a gun onto a public college campus?

How might they react in a tense, potentially tragic situation? There are no answers to such questions.

And that isn't even the most common concern of those who worry about this changing policy.

What about careless carry? That's the sort that might be practiced by someone who unintentionally discharges a weapon, leading to accidental injury or worse.

That has already happened on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville when someone with no authority to have a gun there shot himself.

Will the presence of more guns, even lawfully concealed and carried, make such accidents more or less likely?

Then there is the possibility that someone will take a gun away from the licensed permit holder, presenting risk to those involved and to anyone nearby.

There are way too many unnerving scenarios to cite here. Yet, the truth is those of us who are concerned about them cannot stop the inevitability of having more guns on our college campuses.

About all we can take solace in is that the state police have, to the extent the law allows, tried to create an enhanced training program to mitigate the bad effects of this new law.

And they're taking their time to put it in place.

Commentary on 10/18/2017

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