Nevada Senate Bill #231, the Concealed Carry on Campus Bill, has already passed the Democratically-controlled state Senate by a vote of 15-6. To their credit, the Democratic Leadership in the Senate were the 'No' votes.
This bill would allow anyone with a CCW permit to carry any of their registered weapons on any of the 8 Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE) campuses - students, staff, faculty, community members - anyone - as long as planned gatherings are attended by fewer than 1000 people. There is a policy currently; it states that CCW permit holders may petition the campus presidents in writing for written permission to carry on a specific campus.
If this bill passes out of the Assembly Judiciary Committee, it will go to the Assembly. There are 5 days left in the Legislative Session.
I went to a Big 10 university for undergrad, an SEC university for my Master's, and an ACC university for my Ph.D. I am well aware that situations threaten people's safety can and do occur on college campuses. It has happened on every campus on which I have attended classes or on which I have been employed. (FWIW, there also was a robbery in the south part of town last night - far from campus.) There is no way to make any open environment completely safe. One can only hope to minimize the risks. One of the ways my university does this is to offer door-to-door vehicle escorts from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m. free of charge to anyone on campus during those hours. Just call and they will quickly be there to take you where you need to go.
Most people understand the challenges of adult students carrying concealed weapons in a lecture hall. This diary is not about that.
I've become aware in reading the comments/discussion/tweets about SB #231, that the general public (and many university students) don't understand how much of a community-within-a-community a college campus really is. The legislative staff members with whom I have spoken over the last several days did not seem to be aware that on my campus there is a family medicine clinic, a pharmacy, a movie theater and a credit union in the student union, several preschool programs located in different buildings across campus including an Early Head Start program, a counseling center where students from counseling psych and social work complete their professional training with other students experiencing personal challenges, and the speech-language pathology & audiology clinic. If SB#231 is signed into law as currently written all of these clinics and services (including the credit union) would have to allow students, staff, faculty, and folks from the community to carry concealed weapons. The preschool programs would have to permit any adult to wear a concealed weapon around young children.
I am first and foremost a speech-language pathologist and a child language researcher second. Part of my job is to supervise graduate clinicians providing speech-language therapy. Our client base primarily consists of children and older adults and all of our clients currently come from communities within 90 minutes of campus. We have 25 therapy rooms, 3 evaluation suites, and the audiological suite in the clinic. We are a training program. We have observation hallways with 2-way mirrors available for families and supervisors to observe the therapy sessions. By necessity, these hallways are kept dark. They are quite narrow with room for people to sit side-by-side on stools. The therapy rooms themselves also are quite small - less than 25 sq ft each. If SB #231 becomes law, we will have to permit students, clients, and clients' families members to bring guns into such close quarters if they have a CCW permit. I would have to allow anyone to enter my office in the clinic with a concealed weapon if this bill passes. I would have no say over the matter if the bill passes as written.
Just upstairs from us is the community-based nutrition program, the student health center, the pharmacy, and the family medicine clinic. I just cannot see any reason why students, staff, faculty, or the clients/patients/families we serve need to bring concealed weapons into our clinics.
It may come as a shock, but at the beginning of the semester almost all of those 75+ undergrads are complete strangers to me. Some of them will remain strangers for the entire semester. Some students will take the time to get to know me. Maybe they really like the class I'm teaching. Maybe they think I'll be willing to write them a letter of recommendation for graduate school or for a job. Some students become infamous. I learn who they are quickly because, like last year, they will pretend to shoot the floor or their classmates with their hands in the shape of a gun. I learn who other students are quickly because they are consistently disruptive in lecture. Right now, I know that very few, if any, of those students are armed when they come in my office. If this bill passes, I would have no way to know if they had just brought a gun past the clients in our clinic and into my office.
It also strikes me as a bit odd that the NSHE system should be singled out for a different CCW policy from other state agencies. If it's not appropriate to carry any weapons - concealed or otherwise - into the state Legislature or the state Supreme Court or the DMV or the Welfare office, then I'm not sure I see how it's appropriate that people be allowed to carry concealed weapons on university campuses. I guess people generally do not realize that faculty and staff expose themselves to complete and nearly complete strangers each and every day.
Thanks for reading my rant...