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Bill would allow armed professors on Tennessee campuses

KNOXVILLE — Handguns could find their way onto Tennessee college campuses — legally — under one of the latest gun bills coming before the General Assembly.

State Rep. Stacey Campfield’s proposal, scheduled for a hearing Wednesday before a House Judiciary subcommittee, would allow any full-time faculty and staff member with a valid permit to bring a handgun onto their public college campus.

“By banning guns on campus you are not banning the criminals,” the Knoxville Republican said Monday. “All you are banning is the people from being able to defend themselves.”

But University of Tennessee officials worry about the effect.

“Based on input of our law enforcement officials and people who we think know best how to provide safety on a campus, we don’t think it is a good idea,” UT vice president Hank Dye said. “We think it could open the door to a lot of things that are detrimental to general safety.”

Brian Malte, state legislation director with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said only Utah, under a court ruling, now allows armed carry-concealed permit holders on campus. Comparable legislation introduced in 17 states last year failed in every case.

“Most states allow college administrators to make those decisions as opposed to just banning concealed-carry on college campuses outright,” he said. “And the vast majority choose not to allow concealed carry.”

In Tennessee, college campuses are covered under a general ban on guns on school grounds. Only law enforcement officers or members of the military can come onto a campus armed, said Nashville attorney John Harris, director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, a guns rights advocacy group.

Harris supports Campfield’s bill, saying faculty and university staff are not “the ones doing the shooting.”

“I am not wanting faculty to take on the responsibility of armed security,” he added, “but it increases the probability if something arises you have people (who are) going to be able to intercede.”

Still, campus police chiefs from UT-Knoxville and UT-Chattanooga plan to testify against the bill. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which last week reported violent crime dropped 26 percent on Tennessee campuses in 2008, is not taking a position, TBI spokeswoman Kristin Helm said.

The measure comes before the House Criminal Practice and Procedure Subcommittee with more than 30 other gun-related bills just days before the second anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings, where a gunman killed 32 people, wounded 23 others and then turned the gun on himself.

“You had 30 people shot like fish in a barrel, like an easy kill zone where ... nobody can do anything until the guy runs out of bullets or gets bored,” Campfield said.

John Nolt, president of the UT-Knoxville Faculty Senate, said there is little support among professors for Campfield’s bill. “A campus should be a place of learning, not an armed campus,” he said.

While incidents like Virginia Tech are tragic, “having self-selected professors, janitors or ex-military personnel carry guns is probably not the most effective way to increase campus safety,” Nolt said.

Yet, UT-Knoxville law professor and Libertarian Instapundit blogger Glenn Reynolds said he supports Campfield’s bill.

“I have a number of students who are licensed to carry weapons and I’d feel safer, not less safe, knowing that they are carrying on campus. I certainly would feel safer if some of my colleagues were armed, too,” he said.

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Paperwork, fees, and background checks to allow people to carry a side-arm? What kind of nonsense is this?

The right of self-defense is a corollary to the right to life; to deny one is to deny the other. The purpose of government is to insure our rights, not to infringe on them.

The fact is that governments should not be involved in permitting the carriage of weapons, either openly or concealed, by anyone.

Our constitution states that the right of the people to keep (possess) and bear (carry) arms shall not be infringed. Marbury v. Madison (1803) decided that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and that any law that contradicts the Constitution is null and void. "The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and the name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void and ineffective for any purpose since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it; an unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed ... An unconstitutional law is void." (16 American Jurisprudence 2d, Sec. 178)

In Murdock v. Pennsylvania (1943) the Supreme Court stated that a constitutionally-protected right may not be licensed, nor a fee charged. The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is one of those protected natural rights.

In Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, Alabama (1962) the Supreme Court decided that “If the state does convert a liberty into a privilege, the citizen can engage in the right with impunity.” (That means they can't punish you, folks!)

To paraphrase an oft-quoted movie line, "Permits? We don' need no steenking permits!"

Neil Evangelista | 4/3/2009 - 7:32 PM - (Suggest Removal )

This is a good bill. None of the massacres at schools would have happened if the honest and responsible people had been well armed.

Jeremiah Jones | 3/31/2009 - 2:33 PM - (Suggest Removal )

Thats what we need........some quack professor toting a gun........I had way too many "weirdo" professors to trust with a gun

bill mcgregory | 3/31/2009 - 10:17 AM - (Suggest Removal )

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