Letter to the Editor: On gun control on Indiana's college campuses

My name is Kyle Bandy. I’m a senior at Indiana University Bloomington studying criminal justice and computer science. Additionally, I have been accepted to the Indiana University Maurer School of Law beginning in Fall 2014 via the direct admission program in which I intend to study criminal law to become a prosecutor in our state.

This past winter, I applied for and was granted a license to carry a handgun in the state of Indiana. This summer, I took the National Rifle Association’s Basic Pistol Training class, and I have purchased a handgun for personal protection, which I carry concealed everywhere, as it is both practical and legal.

Unfortunately, however, the policy of IU does not allow students to possess concealed firearms for their protection on campus.

This past semester at IU, I took a class in argumentation. Throughout the course of the semester, students wrote several essays regarding topics of our choosing, all culminating in a proposition of policy essay advocating for change regarding our subject. My topic, as you might have guessed at this point, was gun control on campus.

I spent countless hours in the library and on the Internet researching what our nation’s brightest individuals have to say about allowing responsible, licensed students to carry guns on campus.

I read the U.S. Supreme Court’s D.C. v. Heller, in which the Court wrote, “a total ban on handgun possession in the home amounts to a prohibition on an entire class of arms that Americans overwhelmingly choose for the lawful purpose of self-defense.”
Since the University requires that first-year students live on campus (with exception for those students who live in or near Bloomington), then the University is most nearly their home during their freshman year on campus.

I read the research findings of Dr. John R. Lott in his book “More Guns, Less Crime,” in which significant statistical data suggest municipalities with “non-discretionary concealed carry laws” (i.e. our entire state with its “shall issue” License to Carry a Handgun statute) have significantly lower crime rates.

I read numerous accounts of the 2007 Virginia Massacre in which the shooter was afforded eight minutes to carry out his bloody, horrendous plot before police were able to intervene — a horror that could just as easily occur on any of Indiana’s campuses.

I read journal articles examining crime rates before and after the State of Utah enacted its statute prohibiting state universities from disallowing licensed students from carrying on campus. The data show a drop in crime over this period.

As I write this letter, I am sitting on the porch of my house in Bloomington, which sits just across the street from IU’s campus. I cannot find a rational justification for disallowing a responsible, licensed, trained student like myself from possessing the gun on my hip at this moment just across the road.

I ask that our state’s legislators and university administrators engage in a dialogue to bring about legislation similar to that in Utah — guaranteeing licensed students the right to carry arms on campus. Thank you for reading my thoughts.

­— kybandy@indiana.edu