Kent State Considers Possibility of Concealed Carry

By Justin McKinney and Jacob Runnels

 

Note: The video has an error in one of the names. “Anna Leise” is supposed to be “Annaleise Lessick.” We apologize for any miscommunication or problems this might have created. 

 

Texas joins a list of a growing numbers of states that bring the idea of concealed carry laws being legal at American colleges more of a reality by making carrying a concealed weapon (CCW) legal on any of that state’s campuses.

 

Texas approved of Senate Bill 11—in effect starting August, 2016—allowing “the carrying of handguns on the campuses of and certain other locations associated with institutions of higher education; providing a criminal penalty,” according to Texas Legislature Online. In Ohio, CCW is legal, but according to Ohio Revised Code 2923.126, CCW is limited to being “in a locked motor vehicle or the licensee is in the immediate process of placing the handgun in a locked motor vehicle,” making CCW illegal on campuses in Ohio.

 

“There are no weapons allowed on campus, as far as concealed carry goes,” said Tricia Knoles, the Community Resource Officer for the Kent State University Police Department (KSUPD). “Our Board of Trustees have written policies on that… so that policy has already been established.”

 

CCW being banned on campus isn’t anything new, but with Senate Bill 11 being passed in Texas and the forming of a new campus gun club, what is the possibility of CCW being unbanned on campus by the Kent State Board of Trustees?

 

According to Armed Campuses, Texas is the recent addition to a list of states allowing CCW on campuses, including Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin.

Knoles said, if CCW at Kent State would be a possibility, the standard CCW rules would apply, such as the requirement for a CCW owner to be at least 21 years old. However, Armed Campuses reports fraternities and sororities as being unaffected by the Texas campus CCW laws.

 

Knoles said, when a firearm was discharged on campus April 2, 2014, it inspired the KSUPD to increase preparedness of officers, such as training officers quarterly on active shooter situations. She said, while the KSUPD is “pretty prepared” for active shooter situations, the KSUPD’s views did not change when it came to firearms on campus.

 

In fact, Knoles, an ALICE training instructor, recommends ALICE training courses to help people learn survival skills in an active shooter situation. However, Knoles sees faults in both ALICE and CCW training.

 

“We don’t teach that ALICE is 100 percent effective, it just increases your survival skills,” she said. “With CCW, that’s not going to be 100 percent that you’re going to be safe; it just increases your survivability. There’s really not a fair argument on either side because both [CCW and ALICE training] have the same argument.”

 

Dr. Pat Coy, director of the Center for Applied Conflict Management (CACM) and a political science professor, said guns are not the answer when de-escalating a conflict and CCW is “a bad idea.”

 

“[CCW] runs really contrary…to the purpose of a liberal arts education,” he said. “We have a course in the Kent core called Introduction to Conflict Management… [where] we help students understand their own personal conflict styles.”

 

Coy said the CACM aims to promote and teach “constructive approaches” to conflict management, such as de-escalating tense situations and calming down people in said situations. He said the CACM was developed in response to the May 4 shootings.

 

“In the class, we teach, ‘what if all of [the conflict management we teach] doesn’t work?’” he said. “Well, you could pick up a gun, but that’s not what we teach.”

 

Coy said there are classes and an undergraduate program around conflict management. While he said there are no classes on how to deal with a situation involving a gun, there are classes based around nonviolent action, which he said is “the antithesis of gun use.”

 

As Knoles and Coy said, there can be more negative consequences behind CCW at Kent State.

 

When asked about the potential of having CCW being allowed at Kent State, senior theatre studies major James Michaels said he would support the idea.

 

“I am actually perfectly fine with somebody having a legal gun, as long as it is both license and they have the license to use it,” he said. “I would also feel safer in case there’s somebody who brought an illegal gun to school [because] someone who has the legal gun would be able to defend in case something were to occur.”

 

However, students such as Annaleise Lessick, a graduate student majoring in clinical mental health, said the school doesn’t need CCW.

 

“I don’t think I’d feel comfortable with it,” she said. “This campus promotes safety enough that it might not be necessary to bring a gun on campus.”

 

As a policy up to the Board of Trustees to decide, CCW remains an issue on campus that could someday be influenced by more states passing laws to have CCW allowed on campuses.