Should SC allow more guns on college campuses?

The week he turned 21, Patrick McGregor applied for a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

But when the Charleston native goes to class at the University of South Carolina, the criminal justice major has to leave his Ruger LC9 – and, he adds, his peace of mind – at home. “As students, we’re sitting ducks.”

McGregor is president of Students for Concealed Carry at USC, a group that backs an S.C. House proposal that would allow South Carolinians with permits to carry concealed weapons to take their guns on public college campuses.

State Rep. Steven Long, R-Spartanburg, says his “campus carry” bill would deter shootings, sexual assaults and other crimes on college campuses and at sporting events.

But the proposal faces sharp resistance from the state’s two largest universities, and from Democrats – in the S.C. House and in USC’s student population – who say guns only threaten campus safety.

“You’ve got a lot of young people who are growing up, who may or may not handle conflict well,” said state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg. “We ought not make it so convenient for a weapon to be used in handling conflict. To have students armed, I believe, would lead to more instances of violence on campus.”

If Long’s proposal becomes law, South Carolina would join eight other states that allow concealed-weapon permit holders to carry guns on college campuses. Another 24 states leave that decision up to individual colleges.

Long says his proposal was inspired by the Ohio State University attack in which a student crashed his vehicle into pedestrians and slashed others with a butcher knife. A campus police officer shot and killed the attacker about a minute after the attack began.

“Students are vulnerable on campus,” said Long, a freshman legislator who graduated from USC Upstate in 2015. “They have no means to defend themselves.”

Long says criminals would think twice before attacking a student who could be armed, and that concealed-weapon permit holders prove their maturity by jumping through the required hoops to get one.

However, Democrats say campus and local police already are trained and paid to handle security, and that adding more guns to the mix is not the answer.

Evan Dodge, president of USC’s College Democrats, says he feels safer now than he would “knowing that the next person over from me could have a gun.”

He wonders what would happen if a permit holder shoots the wrong person or if a bullet, intended for a suspect, ricochets during the adrenaline-packed confusion of an active shooter situation. “The last thing anybody wants is for a public school to become the O.K. Corral with everybody firing.”

Last year, researchers at Johns Hopkins University released a study that found allowing firearms on college campuses is unlikely to lead to fewer mass shootings or casualties. Instead, they wrote, more guns could make common acts of aggression or recklessness more deadly and have a “deleterious impact on the safety of students, faculty and staff.”

USC says its weapons-free campus is the safest place in Columbia for its students. Clemson University also has issued a statement saying the campus-carry proposal threatens campus safety.

“The university remains opposed to anyone carrying a firearm on campus other than law enforcement officers, a position supported not only by USCPD and other state and local law enforcement agencies but also by higher education and law enforcement professional associations across the country,” USC spokesman Wes Hickman said.

This story was originally published February 27, 2017 at 6:02 PM with the headline "Should SC allow more guns on college campuses?."