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Posted on 07/31/2024 9:02:47 PM PDT by lightman
As West Virginia University students begin packing their belongings for the start of the fall semester, pistols and revolvers could be boxed up alongside backpacks, bed sheets and winter coats.
That’s because of the state’s new Campus Self-Defense Act, which requires West Virginia’s higher education institutions to allow licensed concealed carry on their campuses, with some exceptions.
The law, which went into effect July 1, makes West Virginia the 13th state to require its colleges to allow concealed carry on campus.
Institutions such as WVU are now preparing for changes this fall semester as the bulk of their students return in just a few short weeks.
“We know that as it relates to this law, there are those who were supportive of its passage and want the opportunity ... to take advantage of the concealed carry law, and we know that there are those who aren’t,” said April Kaull, communications chair of WVU’s Campus Safety Steering Group.
“Our job at this point is to make sure that we’re complying with the law under the state code ... and that we provide information (and) resources (to) members of our campus community and those who visit our campuses.”
Here’s what to know about the Campus Self-Defense Act and how it will impact West Virginia colleges.
What the law mandates Approved by West Virginia’s legislature and signed by Gov. Jim Justice in 2023, the law requires all of the state’s higher education institutions to generally allow students, professors and others to carry concealed pistols or revolvers on campus grounds.
Those who choose to carry must have a license to do so, and their weapons cannot be visible.
The law does carve out some exceptions that allow schools to choose to prohibit firearms in certain places. For example, WVU will continue to ban firearms in dorm rooms, at stadium events with more than 1,000 people, and in areas where patient care or mental health counseling is occurring.
A full list of areas where concealed carry is prohibited at WVU can be found on the university’s website.
Because weapons can’t be stored in dorm rooms, students who live on campus must store their pistols and revolvers in designated lockers.
How WVU is adjusting Before the Campus Self-Defense Act passed, West Virginia colleges determined their own concealed carry policies. WVU officials believed the university was in the best position to make this call, said Kaull.
“West Virginia University advocated that local control and local decision-making by our Board of Governors was ... the most appropriate and the best,” she said.
But, sensing that the legislature would enact a campus carry law, WVU began reaching out to universities in states such as Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, all of which mandate concealed carry options on campuses.
Many of these institutions said they didn’t see significant changes on their campuses after concealed carry laws went into effect, Kaull said.
WVU also doesn’t anticipate big changes — as of early July, only five students living on campus had requested usage of the designated lockers to store their firearms.
Still, the university had to make preparations to accommodate the Campus Self-Defense Act. It provided the storage lockers, established the Campus Safety Steering Committee, passed a Board of Governors policy regarding the new law, and shared information and resources online and around campus.
School officials will continue informing students, faculty and staff about the new law in the fall semester, Kaull said.
“We’re going to continue to educate our campus community about what the law is, and I think that’s the most important thing for us to be doing,” she said.
Campus carry by state Campus carry is a “very old issue,” said Andrew Willinger, executive director of Duke University’s Center for Firearms Law.
Even in the early 1800s, American colleges debated campus gun policies. Traditionally, these rules were left up to individual institutions’ discretion, as is the case in Pennsylvania. The University of Pittsburgh and Penn State both prohibit guns on their campuses.
But in the past 20 years, more legislators began formulating laws that broadly determined the policies at their states’ colleges.
“In general, this has been something historically that’s been left to the discretion of the specific college or university to determine what their policy will be,” Willinger said. “That has now changed in recent years.”
As of 2024, eight states — West Virginia, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, Utah and Idaho — have laws in place that require campus carry options. Another five, including Ohio, require campus carry options, though colleges can limit who can carry where.
Ten states, meanwhile, prohibit campus carry. Those states include New York, New Jersey and Michigan.
Self-defense or safety concern? Proponents of campus carry argue that it bolsters self-defense options and allows students, professors and staff to practice their Second Amendment rights.
West Virginia State Sen. Rupie Phillips, the lead sponsor of the Campus Self-Defense Act, pointed to campus sexual assault statistics as a reason why he wanted his daughter to be able to carry on a West Virginia college campus, the Associated Press reported last year.
“I don’t want my daughter to have to face this. I don’t want your daughter, your granddaughters to ever have to face that,” Phillips said to fellow lawmakers. “That’s another reason that we need to get this through.”
Supporters also highlight the law’s license requirement — meaning those who carry will have gone through a background check and state training. It’s not a “Wild West” situation, said Kevin Patrick Jr., vice president of the West Virginia Citizens Defense League.
“We’re talking about law-abiding citizens who are interested in protecting themselves and people who are close to them,” Patrick told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I think that makes everybody safer.”
Opponents of campus carry, meanwhile, express concerns that allowing concealed weapons on campuses could exacerbate safety concerns. As the legislature considered the bill last year, several WVU students protested it.
“We think this will bring further violence to our campus,” Keeley Wildman, a WVU graduate student, told The Dominion Post, Morgantown’s daily newspaper, in February 2023.
Andy Pelosi, executive director of the Campaign to Keep Guns off Campus, believes that states can reduce risks by banning firearms on college campuses. He pointed to suicide, substance abuse and interpersonal violence concerns.
“When it comes to college-aged students, suicide is the second leading cause of death ... We want to reduce risk,” Pelosi told the Post-Gazette. “There’s other things obviously happening on a college campus — whether it be alcohol, drugs or academic pressures — (and) we feel like introducing firearms into that equation is a deadly mix.”
(c)2024 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Visit the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at www.post-gazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Better to be tried by twelve (unContitutionally!) than to be carried by six.
PROCON
Ping!
One does not abandon Second Amendment RIGHTS at the campus gatepost.
Good, needs to be allowed in all schools in all 50 states, plus DC and our territories like Guam and Puerto Rico, etc.
This Ping List is for all news pertaining to infringes upon or victories for the 2nd Amendment.
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Remember that “the Mountain State” was established in 1864 by Patriots who believe that Constitutional and inaliegnable rights extended to ALL!
Too bad it isn’t open carry. Makes ladies and gentlemen out of a whole lotta folks.
“Well, in the first place an armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”
—Robert A. Heinlein
“The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.
——A.E. vanVogt
Aye.
An openly armed society is a polite society.
Are dorm roomers supposed to leave them outside? Heck, when I was in college, I had my rifle, shotgun and pistol in my dorm room.
Whithout magnetometers how do the intend to enforce that?
I stand by my O.P.
Whithout magnetometers how do the intend to enforce that?
I stand by my O.P.
good, protect yourself and others from danger, attack (and college campuses being among the most dangerous places on earth these days ... the Islamics and communists and Nazis CAN find WV on the map!)
Penn State administrators always thought the law of the federal government in the state stopped at the main gate
Banned in dorms rooms? Well that sorta negates the law for those who live on campus.
I’d just put a false bottom in a book-bag or backpack or such and store it there in case needed.
They become targets. Eliminates element of surprise.
“licensed concealed carry”
I thought WV was a constitutional carry state. No licensing needed.
GOOD. The Second Amendment protects citizens from being sitting ducks for lunatics or criminals.
You can’t store your firearm in your dorm room? If CC minimum age is 21 in WV, this probably isn’t much of an issue. If it’s 18, where are the “designated lockers”? Are they located in public spaces where anyone can see you holstering your weapon? Are the lockers convenient to the students? Many questions.
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