Florida bills allowing open carry guns, concealed weapons on college campuses still a bad idea
Would you be comfortable and secure sending your 18-year-old daughter or son to a college where older students, professors and staff could carry a concealed firearm -- not just on campus, but in a classroom? A bill in the Legislature would allow that. Another measure would legalize open carry just about everywhere else.
The bills, currently working their way through legislative committees, would ease restrictions on the 1.4 million Floridians with concealed-weapons permits. Yet 73 percent of Florida residents oppose concealed campus carry as do university presidents, faculty organizations, campus police chiefs and student government leaders. Lawmakers are deaf to the opposition.
On open carry, apparently society has devolved into a nation where the display of weaponry is seen as a primary deterrent to crime. If the bad guys know you're packing, they will not bother you for fear of getting shot; that's the rationale.
Forty-five states now allow open carry. Twenty-three states allow colleges and universities to decide gun policies. Florida is one of the states that bans guns on campus and open carry.
Nevermind that your gun could be ripped from your possession and used against you. That sometimes happens with trained professional law enforcement officers, but that doesn't come up in the debate over citizen gun rights.
Many law enforcement organizations, including those representing sheriffs and police departments, do not support open carry based on public safety issues. Many of those objections center on the lack of a requirement for increased public training, holstering and handling of open-carry weapons as well as the ban on officers asking for an individual to produce a concealed-weapons permit when openly carrying a firearm.
That latter provision handcuffs authorities from making sensible requests to help ensure public safety and only enables criminals without a concealed-carry permit from feeling afraid of discovery.
One state senator objected to the campus open-carry bill, citing the potential need for college and university security to be "militarized." Mental health services should be better funded if campus security is the goal.
This nation has endured too many mass murders, not only on college campuses but everywhere. The prevailing philosophy appears to be the more weaponry out there, the safer we all are.
This month, the Colorado Springs Police Department's 911 dispatch system came under national criticism for its response to a call about a man carrying a rifle in the streets. The dispatcher told the caller that state law allowed people to openly carry guns in public. That rifleman then killed a man near the caller's home and two women a half mile away in a shooting rampage. The gunman died in a hail of police gunfire.
Where was the good civilian with a gun before the killings? Nowhere. Police couldn't respond because the law permitted open carry.
State Rep. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, has been sponsoring gun bills for several years, and now, tired of being labeled a hypocrite, he authored legislation this year that allows concealed-carry permit holders to bring guns into local government and legislative meetings and career centers. While we understand his position, and there's a certain amount of poetic justice to that idea, hot-headed politics don't need to be mired in gunfire. Would anyone considering public office launch a campaign knowing they likely needed to have a concealed-carry permit just to sit on the dais? The very idea is too chilling.
Likewise, any immature and reckless college student fueled by mind-altering substances that cloud judgment should not be carrying weapons on a campus.
Plus, how are law enforcement officers going to distinuish a bad guy from a good guy in a gun battle? Shoot first, ask questions later is not a sound public policy.
There's a stronger argument that concealed-carry is best, giving the tactical advantage to a citizen instead of the criminal. And colleges should be remain free of weaponry. Leave the law as it is.
This story was originally published November 12, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Florida bills allowing open carry guns, concealed weapons on college campuses still a bad idea ."