THE LAST GREAT GUN DEBATE
A line has been drawn between those for and against guns on campus as the issue forces it’s ugly head to the center of discussion

Story by Ted Hamilton/ Photography by Julianna Frantz

Students attending public universities in Ohio might find the idea of sitting in a classroom where students may be carrying handguns an absurd notion, especially at Kent State. The May 4 tragedy-turned-legacy makes the issue of guns even more charged than at other universities. Some people, however, are attempting to push Ohio legislators to allow concealed carry laws to cross over onto public campuses.

In 2004, then-governor Bob Taft signed a bill that was a hot button issue with citizens of the Buckeye state. Gun control advocates were enraged and Second Amendment supporters were ecstatic: Ohio sheriff offices could grant licenses to those who paid a fee, underwent training and passed certain restrictions. Proponents of the legislation say the license helps reduce crime and provides people a means of self-defense. Others disagree and say more guns are not going to solve a problem started by guns in the first place.

The main one-two punch for the people who support the law is the shootings at Virgina Tech that took 33 lives with dozens more wounded. Even more recently, the tragedy at Northern Illinois University is making more students edgy about being able to protect themselves while on campus.

In the wake is a debate brewing from a campus culture of fear. To carry or not to carry; that is the question.

The Law in Ohio

Ohio is a “shall-issue” state says firearms trainer Amanda Suffecool of Targething, a Portage County company that offers safety training. “Shall-issue” means as long as the applicant is not restricted — for example, a convicted felon cannot apply for a permit — he or she can obtain a license. Ohio law requires at least 12 hours of training before granting the license.

“It’s almost like having a child. You are responsible from the moment that you agree to take (the gun with you) to the moment that you lock it back up,” Suffecool says.

Targething has trained somewhere around 1,000 people, she says. From the young to the old, people with walkers and wheelchairs, men and women.

The most significant applicant Suffecool remembers is a 69-year-old woman who had carried a gun since her 30th birthday. The woman told her that she did not like being illegal, but her job put her in jeopardy and the gun helped her feel safe.

Not every business allows concealed carry license holders to bring their firearm into its establishment and, by law, firearms are not allowed in government buildings. These places include rest stops, courthouses and police stations. The law also covers public universities, which are partially funded by the government. However, that area of the law has developed an opposition.

Phoenix Rising

Four years after the law was passed, the debate over whether people should be allowed to carry hidden firearms has burned out and is rarely discussed in everyday conversation or in university classrooms. But from the ashes of that debate, the tragic massacre at Virginia Tech and the killings at the Northern Illinois University have given rise to a new question — should public universities be required to let licensees bring their guns on campus? Will this help prevent more blood from being spilt at universities, or will it lead to shooting wars during arguments?

Members of the national group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus do not think a war-zone scenario is plausible. 

“Given the predictions of (people who opposed concealed carry laws) in every state where concealed carry laws were introduced have been proven false, like arguments over parking spaces turning into shoot outs, places turning into the Wild West and blood running down the street,” says Mike Flitcraft, a sophomore mechanical engineering technology major at the University of Cincinnati. “Why should we assume any differently on college campuses?”

Flitcraft has been involved with SCCC almost since the beginning of the organization — first as a campus leader and now as national organizer for the group. He says he first got involved when shots were fired on the porch of a residence hall at his school.

He has a permit and says he had to draw one time but “thankfully” he did not have to use it. He was walking around his neighborhood in Cincinnati when he passed a young man leaning against a post with two bags at his feet. The man asked him if he was in a hurry and Flitcraft responded, “I can’t help you, bud.” The man began to run after him, yelling threats before reaching into his pocket menacingly. Flitcraft did not know what the man had but “was not about to find out after being threatened” and pulled his firearm from its holster.

“I don’t remember me actually drawing or what I yelled at him,” he says. “But when I drew my firearm he did a 180 and ran full-bore in the other direction.”

Before this frightening incident, he says he hated putting his pistol on his hip because some people think license holders are just “looking for a reason to shoot somebody,” but the firearm itself is a reminder of why he carried the weapon in the first place.

“It was also the one thing that may have saved my life, and I didn’t have to pull the trigger,” he says. “My hands were shaking too much to dial 911 for over half an hour. My pistol is now the ultimate reminder to me that I have an option to live, when I otherwise may not have had that option.” 

Permit holders generally believe they have a right to protect themselves, whether on campus or off.

“Just because I go to college doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to protect myself here when I am able to protect myself in my home and the majority of other places I go,” says Jon Kruse, a Kent State junior electronic media production major. Although he does not have a permit, he plans on obtaining one in the near future.

People who oppose guns on campus say they do not want to see students full of hormones running around armed, and everyone will be carrying a gun. But Kruse doesn’t like that argument.

“To get a concealed carry permit requires not just going into a convenience store and getting a gun,” Kruse says.

Flitcraft agrees, citing the “harsh background check” and having fingerprints and a photograph taken by law enforcement as evidence of security. The real worry is not from people who get the permit but, rather, those who carry guns illegally, he says.

“Criminals know that those on a campus will be disarmed. Change that and they will think twice about looking for victims in our schools,” says Ken Stanton in an e-mail. Stanton is a doctoral candidate in engineering education and graduate teaching assistant of engineering exploration at Virginia Tech. He also is the university’s SCCC leader.

Gun free zones are another sore subject for proponents of concealed carry — Stanton calls them “victim-rich zones.” Flitcraft refers to them as “criminal protection zones” that “logically serve no purpose.”

“If somebody is going to commit an illegal activity, is telling them that they’re not allowed to do it, or making it more illegal going to stop them?” he says.

Supporters of concealed carrying on campus agree that shootings like those that happened at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University could have been stopped if a student had his or her concealed weapon. Stanton says his last thought was that if more students had guns, then they might have been able to stop the massacre at his college.

“When I think that my friend Jeremy might be alive if a good student had been armed, it makes me miss him even more,” he says.

More Guns Beget More Violence

The opponents of concealed carry on campus cannot be ignored. After all, the United States has the highest death-by-firearms rate when compared to other wealthy countries according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Saying that more guns, whether concealed or not, is going to solve a problem created solely by guns in the first place is faulty logic to me,” says Megan Meadows, a junior communications and theatre major at Virginia Tech.

Meadows thinks allowing concealed weapons on campus would be a regression for gun laws because it would open a “new can of worms” and cause more violence than what already exists at universities. There is a reason legislation has made school zones gun-free and acts as a precaution to make sure nothing happens, she says, adding she would not feel safe if people were allowed to carry weapons on campus.

“Would we allow students and teachers to carry nunchuks or swords?” she asks. “Allowing concealed carry on campus promotes violence in the academic setting. It’s wrong.”

Trudy Steuernagel, a Kent State political science professor, seconds Meadows’ opinion, especially with Kent State’s tragic history that left four students dead in 1970.

“I would hate to see guns on campus at Kent State,” she says. “It would just seem wrong.”

Steuernagel thinks the majority of campuses are safe and the few tragedies that do happen are horrible, but having concealed weapons would be outweighed by a potential for disaster.

She says the reason for the massive amounts of media attention on the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University shootings is they are “so rare.”

She does not believe there is any way the Northern Illinois University shootings could have been prevented, even though we wish we could predict tragedies like that so we would know how to stop them from happening.

“I was on (Virginia Tech) campus the day of April 16, and I was not in any frame of mind to be in possession of a gun,” Meadows says. “I was jumpy, traumatized, hiding under a table, and who is to say that if I would have been carrying a gun that I would not have accidentally hurt someone while trying to protect myself in my shaken state. That is a big ‘what-if.’”

Meadows started a Facebook group called “Students Against Concealed Carry on Campus” when she noticed all of the Facebook groups that were for the laws to carry. She says she was shocked to find letting guns into schools was even an issue because it made no sense to her. The massacre at her school took the life of one of her closest friends, and it has become her “personal mission” to prevent others from having to go through the ordeal she did.

“To me, this means lobbying for stricter mental health and gun laws, which includes keeping guns off of school campuses,” she says. “I cringe at the mere thought of a gun now, and if I had to go to a school where I knew people other than law enforcement were legally able to carry them, I would not feel safe.”

Other people walk a razor-wire line over the issue, seeing the dangers of the law but not denying the benefits. Travis Oberlin, a Kent State political science and history major, says he doesn’t really trust people and definitely doesn’t trust people with guns — “A lot of things can happen and a lot of worse things can happen if guns are involved.”

He says he can see how the Virginia Tech shootings could have been stopped with the help of a person with a concealed carry permit, but at the same time there could be a lot more incidents in places like parking lots where emotions can run high.

“If someone not feeling safe at night has a gun, they could hear something and they’re going to pull the gun out,” he says. “It could end pretty badly.”

The outcome of the debate remains to be seen, but both sides are gaining more and more attention — and members. SCCC grew at a rate of 1,000 members a day for four straight days in February after five students and the gunman were killed at Northern Illinois University. Even Meadows’ Facebook group is seeing a rise in numbers. State legislators seem to be sweeping the issue under a rug, but with the growing media attention — SCCC is even being challenged by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence — and growing support, it’s not something that will be able to be hidden for long.

Sooner or later someone will have to decide where the phoenix falls. 

Ted Hamilton is a senior magazine journalism major. This is his second story for The Burr.