Utah students hide guns, head to class

As it should be, let everyone carry guns and the criminals won't know who to victimize.

Utah students hide guns, head to class

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (CNN) -- The senior at the University of Utah gets dressed and then decides which gun is easiest to conceal under his clothes.
If he's wearing a T-shirt, he'll take a smaller, low-profile gun to class. If he's wearing a coat, he may carry a different weapon, he said.
He started carrying a gun to class after the massacre at Virginia Tech, but the student says he's not part of the problem of campus shootings and could instead be part of a solution.
Nick, who asked not to be fully identified so his fellow students wouldn't know he carried a gun, says he has had a concealed weapons permit for more than three years. But it was Seung-Hui Cho's murderous campus rampage that made him take a gun to class.
"Last year, after Virginia Tech, I thought 'I'm not going to be a victim,' " Nick said.
"My first thought was 'how tragic.' But then I couldn't help but think it could've been different if they'd allowed the students the right to protect themselves."
Days after another campus shooting -- in which five students and the gunman died at Northern Illinois University -- students at colleges in Utah, the only state to allow weapons at all public universities, are attending classes.
Nick says his gun doesn't make him feel immune from attack. "But I feel that I will be able to protect myself, and I'm confident in my training and my ability," he said.
His confidence is not shared by fellow student Griselda Espinoza, who recently transferred to the university. Some 28,000 students attend the school, as of the latest enrollment figures.
"I feel less safe knowing that a stranger sitting beside me in class may have a gun in his or her backpack," she said.
"The only people that should carry guns are trained officials."
The University of Utah had no comment and referred inquiries to the state Board of Regents. Amanda Covington, Utah State Board of Regents spokeswoman, also would not comment on the current gun laws on school campuses.
However, she said the regents are opposing a legislative proposal to allow people with concealed weapons permits to have the weapons visible in public.
"We are worried that it may affect their [students' and teachers'] willingness or desire to go to or teach a class on campus," she said.
The University of Utah, based in Salt Lake City, had prohibited firearms on its campus until that ban was struck down by the state's Supreme Court in late 2006. The institution, backed by all other universities in the state, is still fighting through federal courts to reinstate the ban.
But state legislators could be moving in the opposite direction, considering a bill to modify current law to allow people in Utah -- including students -- to carry loaded weapons openly.
Utah State Representative Curtis Oda said the bill, which he is sponsoring, is merely to clarify that people with weapons permits may carry a gun openly or -- with a concealed permit -- they may hide it for the sake of surprise.
He stressed that people with permits have gone through rigorous checks.
"When you see someone with a gun, you are looking at some of the most law-abiding people in the state," he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/20/cnnu.guns/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

 

The hormonal "kids" are the ones carrying guns and being stupid. Laws don't stop them.

 

But these aren't exactly young punks; they have been screened and granted a CCW permit and are over 21. These are the kind of people that we want to arm.