On Wednesday, the Kansas Board of Regents approved campus carry policies that will go into effect July 1, 2017, when universities in Kansas begin allowing guns to be carried on campus for self-defense.
The state’s campus carry law requires that law-abiding students and faculty 21 years old and older be allowed to carry guns for self-defense in buildings that lack “adequate security measures.” The safety measures include metal detectors and trained guards. The campus carry law was passed in 2013 and gave public colleges and universities four years to decide which buildings to outfit with the security measures and which buildings to open to campus carry.
According to AP/KMUW/KCUR, the security measures “are costly,” making allowances for campus carry more attractive. At this point, Wichita State University plans to just open every building to campus carry. This is subject to change between now and July 1, but campus-wide carry is the plan for now.
Opponents of campus carry argue that “allowing concealed guns won’t make campuses safer,” but Virginia Tech shooting survivor Nicholas Roland disagrees. Roland, who is now a Ph.D. candidate in U.S. history at the University of Texas, told The College Fix that the “worst situation is to have no defense back.” He recounted police response time to the April 16, 2007, attack and observed, “The police were not fast enough and 32 people died.”
He reiterated, “The police were not fast enough to save lives.”
Roland was not criticizing police. Rather, he was criticizing policies that forced students to remain unarmed on campus, making them sitting ducks.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.