House votes down bill to allow concealed carry on campus
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By Michael Wright
Community News Service
UM School of Journalism
HELENA — A proposal that would have allowed people to carry concealed weapons on college campuses went down on a narrow vote in the House last week.
Senate Bill 143, sponsored by Sen. Cary Smith, R-Billings, failed 51-49. It would have nullified existing rules set by the Board of Regents governing where students can have firearms on a college campus.
Rep. Seth Berglee, R-Joliet, carried the bill in the House, and he said the university system has denied students their constitutional rights by barring concealed weapons on campus. He added that because people would still be required to get a permit, mostly responsible people would be carrying guns on campus.
“The type of people who generally get concealed carry permits are extremely responsible,” Berglee said.
House Speaker Austin Knudsen, R-Culbertson, said he was a law student at the University of Montana during the Virginia Tech shooting that killed more than 30 people, and that because of “an arbitrary line in the soil” he wasn’t allowed to carry a gun to school.
“I was denied my right to defend myself,” Knudsen said.
He listed off a number of shootings at college campuses, and said they all happened in places where people weren’t allowed to carry guns, and that it gave shooters access to “unarmed victims.”
“That is unacceptable to me,” he said.
Opponents of the measure said college students aren’t in a good position to be carrying guns.
Rep. Tom Woods, D-Bozeman, who has worked as an adjunct instructor at Montana State University, said college students could be dealing with mental health issues, experimenting with drugs or alcohol for the first time, and might make poor decisions if guns are around.
“Some are responsible, some not so much,” Woods said. “All of them are in a high pressure environment.”
