A bill allowing staff and faculty at Tennessee’s public colleges and universities to be armed on campus became law on Monday without Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s signature.
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The law requires those carrying guns to notify local law enforcement, a provision Haslam said addressed the concerns raised by college administrators during the legislative process, according to the Associated Press.
A poll published last week found that 87 percent of the faculty at the University of Tennessee strongly disagreed that “allowing guns on campus is in the best interest of the campus community”, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel. Mike Bell (R-Riceville) sponsored the legislation in the Senate. They’re also not allowed in hospitals or offices that provide medical or mental health services, as well as daycare centers and elementary schools on campus. “If there were an incident or shooting on campus, they would not be able to tell who has a gun legally and who is committing a crime”, Monica Greppin-Watts, the communications director for the Tennessee Board of Regents, told the Tennessean in March, adding that the Tennessee Association of Police Chiefs agreed the law would decrease campus safety.
Holt also said he believes the “important next step” is to allow students to go armed on campus as well. But if someone else did, I’d support it. These are adults. Students with a permit won’t be able to carry and firearms will be barred from stadiums and gyms during school-sponsored events or in meetings that deal with disciplinary action or tenure. Bell scoffed at many of those comments, declaring that he hopes some professors will follow through on vows to quit their positions at the state’s flagship university if the bill became law. But as a Texas A&M study points out, having more guns on campuses doesn’t necessarily make students safer.
“These are adults. We need to stop talking about college students as children. In Tennessee, Governor Haslam ignored his own constituents to side with the gun lobby”, she said in a statement. “It’s not an effort to create an armed battalion on campus but to allow individuals to protect and defend themselves”, Holt said.
“I don’t think it makes one safer”, Johnson said Monday.
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Sen. Lee Harris, D-Memphis, who surveyed 1,700 university faculty members, many of who criticized the measure, before the legislation was approved in the Senate, expressed his frustration on social media.
