Lawmaker Files Bill To Allow Firearms On University Campuses

December 10, 2014

A Florida lawmaker has filed a bill that would allow people to carry concealed weapons on the campuses of state colleges and universities.

Rep. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, said he already planned to sponsor the measure before a shooting incident last month at Florida State University — but that the attack, which left three people injured and the gunman dead, helps to make his point. The bill, filed Monday, would apply to people who are licensed to carry concealed weapons.

“I think it (the attack) brings it closer to home for people who think these events don’t occur in Florida, or that law enforcement can prevent them from happening,” Steube told The News Service of Florida on Tuesday.

He said that although Tallahassee and university police officers reached Florida State’s Strozier Library less than five minutes after the shooting, more people could have died in that time.

Steube’s bill would accomplish, in part, what a 2011 measure failed to achieve. The 2011 bill was derailed due to another shooting at Florida State. Ashley Cowie, 20, was at a campus party when a gun held by another student accidentally discharged, sending a bullet through her chest. Her father, Robert, a Jacksonville resident, traveled to Tallahassee to lobby against the bill, arguing that putting guns in an area where drugs and alcohol are commonly used would make campuses more dangerous.

Robert Cowie’s tearful testimony, coupled with the opposition of then-Sen. John Thrasher, a St. Augustine Republican who took over last month as president of FSU, helped end the bill’s chances.

“(Thrasher is) the one who shut it down in the Senate,” Steube said. “It appears to be a very personal issue with him.”

Steube said he now believes “there’s more of a chance that we could get it through the Senate this year.” The Senate sponsor of Steube’s bill, Sen. Greg Evers, R-Baker, was also the sponsor of the 2011 measure.

In the wake of last month’s shooting, a group called Students for Concealed Carry at FSU called for Thrasher to reconsider his stance on allowing guns on campus. The group also said Nathan Scott, a Strozier Library staffer who was shot in the leg, was one of its members. Erek Culbreath, the group’s president, argued that Scott and another man, a U.S. Army Infantry combat veteran who “had a clear shot at the shooter,” had the training and skills necessary to end the shooting but were powerless to do so under current law.

“We have seen that the current “Gun-Free Zone” policies have done nothing to curb violence, both in our state and nationwide,” Culbreath wrote in a Nov. 24 news release. “As criminals don’t abide by these policies, they only serve to prevent victims from having the ability to defend themselves and their peers.”

National Rifle Association lobbyist Marion Hammer said Steube’s bill didn’t originate with the NRA, but she supports it on the grounds that law-abiding citizens who are licensed to carry concealed weapons shouldn’t be prevented from carrying firearms in places where they may be in danger.

“The Constitution gives you the right of self-defense,” Hammer said. “Those rights are being usurped, and people are not getting the opportunity they are guaranteed.”

But House Minority Leader Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, said the answer to gun violence isn’t more guns. He also said he’d be more inclined to support the cost of additional security rather than allowing more guns at state universities and colleges.

“We look at these things differently, based on where we come from throughout the state,” Pafford said. “Discharging a weapon where I live, the probability of hurting somebody is a lot higher because we are not living one person on 20 acres.”

Both Pafford and Steube cited their children as the reasons for their stances. Pafford said he’d be more concerned for his two children, who are students at the University of Central Florida, if more people were carrying weapons on campus.

But Steube, who is also sponsoring a bill that would allow school superintendents to designate people who could carry guns on public-school grounds, said he “wasn’t comfortable” with the possibility that his 4-year-old son wouldn’t be protected at school.

“Your kids are defenseless until help arrives,” he said, citing police response times of six to 11 minutes at schools in suburban areas. He said response times are longer in rural areas.

Pointing to the mass slayings in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, Steube noted that shooter Adam Lanza killed 20 children, six adults and himself in less than four minutes.

by Margie Menzel, The News Service of Florida

Comments

5 Responses to “Lawmaker Files Bill To Allow Firearms On University Campuses”

  1. No Excuses on December 11th, 2014 8:34 pm

    @Fred,

    I am a federal law enforcement officer. I don’t have a duty weapon unless I am on the job. The conceal carry license is needed in Florida because I have not been through a Florida Law Enforcement approved class, although my federal class is pretty rigorous. My CC permit allows me to conceal carry legally in Florida and around 37 other states, give or take. It’s always changing with more or less in reciprocal agreements. I’ve had folks argue with me about this, but I called Adam Putnam’s office and got the procedure I needed to follow straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Better safe than sorry, I always say, so I carry a weapon AND a permit!

  2. Fred on December 11th, 2014 10:07 am

    @No Excuses – Just want to make sure I understand – you are a sworn law enforcement officer (state, local, federal?), and aren’t allowed to carry your duty weapon on campus? I can understand the current law doesn’t permit concealed carry permit holders (non-LEO) to carry on campus, but what you described doesn’t sound right to me.

  3. SHO-NUFF on December 10th, 2014 8:54 pm

    The world is not getting any nicer. Its ashamed these students are defenseless, barricading themselves in a room to only hope law enforcement arrives in time.
    When… A licensed concealed carry holder could possibly alleviate the problem.
    Most people that commit these crimes are cowards anyway and choose “gun free” places because they will not be met with any resistance. If the chance was there they might be the one getting a bullet things could possibly change. Right now its like taking candy from a baby.

  4. No Excuses on December 10th, 2014 8:29 pm

    I am for allowing conceal and carry weapons on campus for those licensed to do so. I don’t like the idea of the weapons being in the hands of young, inexperienced people, though. I do agree that someone with the training and opportunity could easily put a stop to a deranged shooter on campus, and that’s the value I see in a bill like this. I have a conceal and carry license, I am in law enforcement and I carry my weapon wherever permitted. It would be nice to be able to carry it on university campuses when I visit them for schooling. We have had students taken and killed by stalkers – a weapon might have stopped such an action.

  5. Gary on December 10th, 2014 9:43 am

    “Steube’s bill would accomplish, in part, what a 2011 measure failed to achieve. The 2011 bill was derailed due to another shooting at Florida State. Ashley Cowie, 20, was at a campus party when a gun held by another student accidentally discharged, sending a bullet through her chest.”

    Stupid comment. Guns do not accidently go off. Some moron has to be on the other end and pull the trigger. My hammer has never accidently nailed those loose boards on my fence. My favorite knife has never accidently jumped up and cut my finger.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News