Recently, Alaska state legislators introduced Senate Bill 174, a bill that is second only to the budget in terms of the impact it will have on the future of the University of Alaska.
SB 174 would allow the possession of concealed firearms anywhere on a university campus — even inside of dorms — and overturn existing university regulations on campus safety stating that guns must be kept in cars or locked storage. Although I am a conservative and a firm believer in gun rights, as a student I cannot support SB 174 or the effect it would have on our university campuses.
Allowing guns to be carried in our classrooms, labs, study areas and dorms is simply a bad idea that would create an unsafe environment. The University of Alaska is and always should be a learning environment, somewhere students are challenged to grow and look beyond their own ideas and feelings.
Professors and teaching assistants have to give bad grades and encourage students to stretch themselves. Advisors need to have uncomfortable conversations with struggling students and help them become better students and people. Resident assistants — who are students themselves — often have to confront students who, caught up in the excitement of living away from home for the first time, haven’t yet come to understand the boundaries of appropriate behavior. And while the vast majority of students are reasonable and intelligent people, there are exceptions, just as in every large community.
I have seen a student, angered by a C+ on his midterm, yell and storm out of a classroom. My friends who work in dormitories tell me about rare instances where they felt uncomfortable confronting a student and their friends. How much harder would those situations have been if guns were involved? I think campus police blotters would include much more violent acts.
Proponents of the bill may argue that SB 174 would make the situations I described safer, since professors and resident assistants who felt unsafe could carry their own firearms. Frankly, this is not true and betrays a misunderstanding of university culture. For one thing, resident assistants may not be able to conceal and carry, as many of them are under 21, the legal minimum for concealed carry in Alaska. Open carry is not much better, as that would create an unsafe, uncomfortable environment for the students living in the dorms. Additionally, guns are unlikely to be carried on campuses under any circumstances by professors, resident assistants or other authority figures.
The culture of UA is one of safety, comfort, and familiarity. Telling people who feel comfortable on campus that they need to carry firearms would introduce a new element of fear that is not needed or wanted. As someone who spends hours on campus nearly every day, I would hate to see the culture threatened that has welcomed me so thoroughly and done so much to make me who I am.
However, the Legislature is not the proper place to debate whether guns should or should not be allowed on campus. The state of Alaska has given authority to the university’s Board of Regents so that they can decide which policies are appropriate for the institution. The regents and the administrators who work for them are the ones familiar with the needs and wants of the campus, and they know how to best ensure the safety of students. They are the ones who communicate on a daily basis with students, staff and faculty. They know that the bill isn’t needed — that there are few violations of existing gun policies and that campus safety can be best addressed in other ways. They know that SB 174 is not wanted by students and would turn open environments for learning into unsafe, fearful places.
The UA Board of Regents, not the Legislature, know the university and what is good for our campuses. Students, staff, faculty, and alumni trust them to make the right choice. I hope our Legislature will, too.
• Mathew Carrick is in his fourth year at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he just graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics and is starting a master’s in business administration. He is the second-term president of the UAF student government and serves as chairman of the Coalition of Student Leaders, a statewide alliance of UA student governments.
