US state implements law allowing students, professors carry concealed guns

The US city of Kansas has put into practice a law which now allows students and professors to carry concealed handguns onto college campuses starting Saturday.

Reports say the law which is the latest in a series of state legislative efforts around the country to address the issue of campus safety from potential shooters was enacted four years ago and applied to all public buildings, but colleges in the Midwestern state were exempted until July of this year.

“The right to bear arms is essential towards preserving our freedoms and maintaining self-government,” Kansas’s Republican governor Sam Brownback, who had supported the 2013 law, said in a statement endorsing the exemption for hospitals, saying “this bill does appropriately address safety concerns.”

Read also: DIPLOMATIC ROW: Qatar’s foreign minister to meet with Tillerson over Gulf crisis

However, there is fear in some quarters over the new law which many say may be counterproductive in the long run.

“I am looking for another job,” Philip Nel, an English professor at Kansas State University, told KSNT, “I will not teach armed students, because that’s crazy.”

Universities can still ban other weapons and firearms, aside from concealed handguns, and only those 21 and older are permitted to carry concealed guns, the university said.

“Nothing in this policy shall be interpreted to require individuals who lawfully possess a handgun to use it in defense of others,” its guidance said.

Kansas is joining Arkansas, Georgia and other states with laws that allow students and faculty to carry guns on college campuses. California and South Carolina are among 16 states that ban the practice.

 

RipplesNigeria ….without borders, without fears

Click here to download the Ripples Nigeria App for latest updates

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now