New UI student group backs carrying guns on campus

IOWA CITY - A new University of Iowa student group backs the idea of letting someone with a gun license carry the gun on campus, a move one student member says would increase personal safety.

The new group, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, is a UI chapter of a national group that has about 43,000 members. Iowa State University also has a chapter.

They advocate that people who are licensed to carry firearms should be allowed the same protection on campus that they have in most other places under Iowa law, August Meyer, UI senior in psychology and a UI chapter founder, said.

“A person who is licensed to carry a firearm off campus isn't going to be any more dangerous on campus,” Meyer, 26, said. “Public safety is our No. 1 priority and concern.”

No one other than certified law enforcement officers are allowed to carry guns on the campuses of the UI, ISU and the University of Northern Iowa. University police do carry guns as standard equipment, a change made in 2007 after a state Board of Regents' review of  safety procedures in the wake of the Virginia Tech campus shootings.

The organization went through the proper channels to become a recognized student group, and Chuck Green, director of UI Police, said he didn't have a comment on the group or its mission beyond that.

The ban on carrying guns at the three university campuses has been in place for some times, Green said.

“I would just say that there's no plan for this policy to change, and even if there was a change that would have to be addressed and come through the regents,” he said.

Changes this year loosened Iowa's gun law, including taking away much of county sheriffs' discretion on issuing gun permits and removing their ability to require that guns be concealed. Some counties and cities have banned guns on their property in the wake of the changes. The rules at Iowa's regent universities that ban carrying guns did not change under the modified Iowa gun law.

Meyer said banning gun permit holders from carrying weapons on campus “only creates victims.”

The UI had a campus shooting in November 1991, when disgruntled doctoral graduate Gang Lu shot six people on campus, five of them fatally, before killing himself.

The campus ban on guns did not prevent that situation, Meyer said Thursday, just as it would not prevent one today if someone is determined to bring a gun to campus to do harm.

“Would a person be more intimidated by a person who carries a legal firearm or a person who carries an illegal firearm?” he said. “The law only disarms law-abiding citizens and those who could carry legally. It doesn't disarm the criminals.”

Von Stange, director of university housing, said even if a change was made to campus policy about allowing guns, the residence halls are allowed to be more restrictive.

“It would be highly unlikely that we would allow weapons in the residence halls,” Stange said. “We'd have to argue that one pretty strongly.”

The new student group was recently recognized by the UI Office of Student Life, said Meyer, who is an NRA-certified pistol instructor. Members plan to hold weekly meetings through the semester, and want to have an “empty holster day” as a silent protest sometime in May.