As the last semester without campus carry winds down, Marshall University prepares to introduce the new legislation to campus.
Jim Terry, the university’s director of public safety and police chief, said he was concerned about the safety issues that will come with campus carry.
“I’m more concerned for the safety issues,” Terry said. “I’m not worried about the person who’s responsible. I’m worried about the person who gets tired of carrying it on their body, starts carrying it in a backpack.”
The West Virginia Legislature passed Senate Bill 10, commonly known as campus carry, on March 1. The bill will take effect on July 1.
Terry said MUPD has opened a frequently asked web page on the topic and held two town halls on the topic. They plan to incorporate the bill into an orientation safety meeting and have formed an action learning team that will inform the public.
MUPD Lieutenant Dicky Parker said the university will implement a clear bag policy at events.
Parker said the action learning team was created by Brandi Jacobs-Jones, the vice president of operations on campus. Parker’s team was tasked with looking at 11 other states that have enacted campus carry and researching how they handled implementing the bill.
Of the 11 states researched, Parker said the universities reported that students thought less about campus carry now than they initially did.
Michael Borsuk, a Student Government Association representative for the Lewis College of Business, said—even without the law—harmful individuals will still do harm.
“In my opinion, the only true way if they wanted to make this a gun free campus is to build a big brick wall around campus because we are open,” Borsuk said.
Borsuk said, because Marshall is an open campus, any non-student can constitutionally carry.
Terry said campus carry would not allow people to open carry, and all individuals will be required to carry a license to conceal carry.
Quistis Stanley, a second-year athletic training major, said she believes campus carry will not cut down the number of school shootings and will encourage more people to attack campus.
“If anything, I feel like it would entice them more into doing so just to see if they can do it,” Stanley said.
Borsuk went on to say he noticed surrounding states that implemented campus carry have not had the casualty rates people are worried about, and the majority of the states with mass shootings are states with tight gun restrictions.
“There are bad people out here,” Borsuk said. “This is a way for law-abiding gun owners to just protect themselves.”
Stanley said her issue with the bill comes from how easy it is to obtain a gun license. She compared the process of obtaining a gun license to a driver’s license, with the former being easier.
“I’ve had family members that went through the process of getting their licenses in West Virginia,” Quistis said. “They said they would rather it’d be harder just ’cause it’s this simple test.”
Terry said the university is working on how to handle the implementation everyday, and MUPD is open to talk to students who still may have concerns.
