Erwin’s Gun bill — it’s not just for ROTC students anymore
Senator Hank Erwin says he is going to amend his bill to allow students to carry a firearm on campus. He wants to remove his earlier restriction that said only ROTC students could carry the weapon.
“I put that in there originally to make that as a test experiment to make that a very narrow bill that would maybe give feelings of security to the university officials all over the state of Alabama; that we’re not going to open this up and make it a Wild West,” he said.
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“But I’m going to put in an amendment to delete that particular point so that it opens it up to any student - especially women,” he said. “After the Auburn shooting I want to make sure that women have priority to be able to carry on campus.”
I should also point out that Senator Erwin’s bill, SB18, begins with the phrase,
Notwithstanding any school policy to the contrary, a student at a state-supported college or university may carry a firearm on the campus of the college or university where he or she is a student if the student satisfies all of the following conditions[…]
That seems to indicate that the Board of Directors of each university may set their own policies. This bill would then, presumably, simply give them permission to allow firearms if the listed conditions are met. This satisfies one of my major concerns with the legislation that I expressed earlier. Now that he’s also removed the silly ROTC requirement, I think I can possibly get behind this bill now.
