Beginning August 1, full-time faculty and staff possessing concealed carry permits will be able to carry guns for defense of themselves and their students at Cedarville University.
The school is located at Dayton, Ohio, and late last week their board of trustees voted to embrace campus carry.
According to Cleveland.com, Cedarville is a Baptist affiliated school that enrolls nearly 4,000 students for undergraduate, graduate, and online studies.
“University President Thomas White said school officials consulted with law enforcement and attorneys and got input from employees through a town hall meeting and surveys” before voting to allow concealed carry on campus. The surveys revealed that “only 8 percent of [Cedarville] faculty and staff…did not want anyone to carry a concealed firearm a concealed firearm on campus.”
In the end, Board of Trustees Chairman Rev. Chip Bernhard said arming faculty and staff was simply the right decision for the school.
Bernhard said:
The board discussed this matter, and in our determination, we believed it was important to allow our conscientious faculty and staff to have the opportunity to exercise their second amendment rights, and, if necessary, to defend themselves should an incident arise in the future. It is our prayer, of course, that no one is ever forced to take this type of action.
Breitbart News reported that Ohio Governor John Kasich (R) signed campus carry legislation into law on December 19, 2016; less than a month after an Islamist armed with a butcher knife and a car attacked unarmed innocents on the Ohio State University campus.
Since that time, Arkansas and Georgia both adopted campus carry as well, bringing the total number of campus carry states to 11. The other eight are Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Texas, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Idaho, and Kansas.
After deciding to allow concealed carry on campus, Cederville University released a statement saying the presence of an armed faculty will only enhance the school’s reputation as “one of the safest college campuses in Ohio.”
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.