Ven Meester is the Editor-in-Chief of the Branding Iron and President and Founder of BridgeUWYO.
Note from the Author: I will lead off by saying that these concerns and conversations are reflective of a wide variety of perspectives that have been brought to me. These are not my concerns or the concerns of one or two students, but the concerns of a large diverse population of student groups, faculty groups, and staff groups. I am nothing more than a representative of those on campus who wish their voices to be heard.
The conversation regarding concealed-carry at the University of Wyoming is a difficult one. While the administration has made it clear that their orders to carry out a draft rule that would permit concealed-carry in select campus facilities is coming from the legislature and by proxy the people of Wyoming, many students, faculty, and staff do not feel represented. One concern is that students, faculty, and staff have no tangible input. A survey was released to gauge campus opinions and resulted in an overwhelming majority of votes against concealed-carry coming to campus. In this same vein, Young Americans for Liberty at UW has been pushing and petitioning for an allowance of tasers on campus for personal protection.
This petitioning has been relatively ignored while the results of the survey were ignored as well. This has essentially demonstrated to the student body that when they campaign for self-defense options they are ignored, and at the same time, when the state legislature wants guns allowed in their campus facilities, they have no say in preventing it.
This leads to the actual concerns students, faculty, and staff have presented. One of the primary concerns regards the dorms and apartments. With there being an allowance for those 21 and over to have concealed carry permits, with a select few students from other states under 21 having them as well, most students who are under 21 are put at a disadvantage in a conflict with those who are over 21. In addition, the argument has been made that if the concealed-carry purpose is to prevent active shooting threats, which are virtually nonexistent in dorms and apartments as they have locked doors and are not usually high traffic or high volume areas due to the segregation of those rooms, the only thing allowing guns in dorms would do is increase suicide rates in a state that already struggles with some of the highest suicide rates in the country.
Another concern is how this will affect enrollment and feelings of safety, particularly in marginalized groups. The enrollment office has already expressed concerns and the United Multicultural Council released a letter imploring UW to protect its marginalized and minority students and disallow a policy they see as potentially furthering unsafe environments and situations.
Another two concerns that go hand in hand are that of permits and that of controversial events. Events similar to the controversial student-group ones held last year have been known to incite violence on campus in some capacity. Allowing concealed carry at these events could exacerbate the chances and severity of this violence. Those with permits are within their legal right to use justified force, which could in turn result in more severe violence. This leads to the second concern of permits. UWPD is the only entity that can request to see a concealed-carry permit, and they are not public record. As such, students cannot request to see other students’ permits and thus must assume that if they notice a student concealed-carrying that the student is permitted. This further leads into the issue of students who do not get permits, many students will likely carry without a permit, because it is unlikely that anyone will check that they have a permit if they do not cause any trouble.
All of this can be summarized to establish two clear camps of students on campus. There are those who do not support concealed carry, and do not want guns to have a more prolific role, and those students who feel that concealed-carry is a poor substitute for constitutional carry. Staff and Faculty have also reported an overwhelming disapproval of guns in campus facilities for many of these same reasons.
The largest point being made is a lack of tangible benefit. Students, faculty, and staff have been provided an exceptional amount of statistics as to why concealed-carry is not bad, but few statistics as to who it benefits. It does not appear that anyone beyond the legislature and administration are pushing for concealed-carry on campus, and it is not reactive to anything other than the vetoed legislation. For this reason, many students, faculty, and staff alike believe that the very fact that many students across campus are reporting that passing this draft rule will make them feel less safe, is reason enough not to have concealed-carry: especially when it does not appear that allowing concealed-carry on campus is a decision that is being made for the benefit of students.
When a survey reports that a campus does not wish to have a regulation, and almost all testimony from students, faculty, and staff push against the regulation, it is clear why there is a divide between the legislature, administration, and campus body. For these reasons, the student body, the faculty, and the staff on campus are concerned, with a draft rule they see as unnecessarily endangering them, with no clear benefits.