Campus gun bill shot down by state Senate

The Senate Education Committee voted down bills by Sen. Hank Erwin, R-Montevallo, March 26 that would have allowed professors and ROTC students to carry guns on college campuses in Alabama.

Committee Chairwoman Sen. Vivian Figures, D-Mobile, said she was pleased with the committee’s decision, and she thinks the public is as well.

“I received calls from people requesting we not pass these bills (prior to the vote),” Figures said. “I had received several calls from college presidents and security personnel saying they did not support these bills.”

Tim Hammond, a junior in finance and cadet captain in Air Force ROTC, said he did not want the bill to be passed.

“That only puts more guns in classrooms and that’s not something that will, by itself, prevent further school shootings,” he said. “Although, each person who would carry a firearm would have a permit, none would have the proper training on how to handle the situations the bill intended to prevent or handle.”

Hammond said ROTC’s goal is to teach tomorrow’s military personnel to be the best possible leaders, so the program does not provide extensive tactical combat training with firearms.

He said those skills are only learned after a person is commissioned as an officer in his or her branch.

Hammond did say, however, he thought the whole Senate, not just the Education Committee, should have voted on the bills.

Erwin said he was disappointed with the fate of his bills and the way they were handled.

“I felt the bills, first, needed more discussion,” Erwin said. “The committee was stacked and in a mood to vote the bills without discussion. They had their minds made up. And I think, secondly, they should have let the whole Senate body debate the issues rather than five people in a committee saying no. And thirdly, the students and faculty are the ones who are facing an increased threat to their security, because it’s now a dead issue.”

Erwin said he felt the committee misunderstood the purpose of his bills.

“I only intended to have the best of the best, the most highly responsible students and faculty handling weapons,” Erwin said. “And for that reason, I believe we should have had wider discussion than what that committee did. They had in their mind that this was going to create a Wild West atmosphere and it was going to be open to all students, and that is the furthest from the truth.”

Erwin said colleges try to ensure students’ safety, but some safety measures are missing from campuses in Alabama.

“The law-abiding student is now on the ever-increasing defensive, because they are now being told that you can’t defend yourself on a college campus,” Erwin said. “And they are also sending a message to the deranged people out there that it’s wide open, come on in.”

Erwin said Auburn University is no exception.

“Auburn is so spread out and so sprawling that it isn’t possible to know who comes on campus and what they bring with them,” Erwin said. “It’s wide open, and it’s just a matter of when, not if, a really bad situation happens.”

Figures agreed some kind of action should be taken to make college campuses safer, but she wants to approach campus safety differently from Erwin.

“I think that we really need to focus on the potential problems of mental illness among people,” Figures said. “We need to try to educate our students and our population on signs to watch for in people who have the potential to cause danger on our college campuses. I hope to turn some action in that direction.”

---

• Add new comment