Mississippi State was one of more than 110 campuses whose students participated in the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus Empty Holster Protest last week. Senior horticulture major Mark Cooper said more than a dozen Mississippi State students participated in the silent protest.
Along with Cooper, senior history and geosciences major Calvin Lim and junior landscape architecture major Allen Dollar run the SCCC chapter at MSU.
For the nationwide protest, students walked around their respective campuses with empty gun holsters.
“Basically, our main stance is that we want concealed carry legalized on campus [for permit holders only],” Cooper said.
Lim said that the group wants students, faculty and guests to be able to have firearms stored in their vehicles while on campus because a vehicle is an extension of a person’s home.
“Our primary goal is two-fold. One: [to make] concealed carry on campus [legal], and two: for students to have firearms in vehicles, too,” Lim said. “We believe it’s their right.”
State law does not allow students to possess any open or concealed firearms on educational properties, and university policy does not allow anyone to have firearms in their vehicle while on campus.
Cooper said he and two other group members visited dean of students Mike White and associate dean of students Thomas Bourgeois and the MSU Police Department to inform them about the protest.
While they did ask for permission to stage the protest, Cooper said they alerted the deans and the police in case the empty gun holsters startled students or others on campus.
“We informed them [about our participation] so that there would be no overreaction from anyone,” he said. While individual can obtain conceal carry permits, Cooper said Mississippi state law does not allow concealed carry on campus, even if an individual has a concealed carry permit.
Additional places that do not allow firearms include bars and courthouses, as well as primary and secondary education centers, he said.
Lim said these safety zones with firearm bans cannot be completely protected by law enforcement officers at all times. The Virginia Tech University shooting showed that law enforcement officers cannot be on the exact spot at all times, he said.
Cooper said he does not think the VT shooting could have been totally avoided, even if students had been allowed to carry concealed weapons.
“If someone in a building had been armed, it could have saved a few lives,” he said.
While firearms are banned from safety zones, Lim said since criminals do not play by the rules, safety zones could be an open area for them.
The SCCC Web site released the following statement about the protest: “The symbolic point of the Empty Holster Protest is to represent that students, faculty, and guests on college campuses are left defenseless (with nothing but empty holsters) by state laws and school policies that refuse to afford concealed handgun license holders the same rights on college campuses that they are afforded virtually everywhere else.”
According to the Web site, the protest would hopefully promote conversation among the protestors and others on campus.
Throughout the week, a few people noticed Cooper’s empty holster, he said.
“The few that did ask seemed fairly positive about it,” Cooper said.
Freshman professional golf management major Mark Ledom said he was not aware of the protest. He said he does not think firearms should be allowed on campus.
“I totally disagree with students being able to bring firearms on campus, even if they do have concealed carry permits,” he said. “It would simply allow for the possibility of unnecessary crimes.”
In 2006, Utah’s state law legalized concealed carry on campus, Cooper said.
Concealed carry is also legal in Virginia, Alabama, Colorado and Vermont, but each college makes the decision whether or not to allow concealed carry on its campus, he said, citing Colorado State University as one campus that allows concealed carry.
There have been no firearm incidents involving any concealed gun carriers on Utah campuses or Colorado State University, he said.
“Statistically, those individuals with [concealed carry] permits are five and a half times less likely to commit a violent crime than those without a permit,” Cooper said.
There have been several instances on college campuses where individuals with concealed carry permits have helped to stop shootings, including one at Appalachian Law School in Virginia and another at a Texas university, he said. In both cases, the individuals with the concealed carry permits were able to restrain the shooters without injuring them until law enforcement officers arrived.
In 1997, a student at Pearl High School in Pearl, Miss. brought a firearm to school and killed two people there.
Cooper said the assistant principal ran to his car to get his firearm. The assistant principal was able to disarm the student and held him at gunpoint until officers arrived so the student could not harm anyone else.
“People have the right to protect themselves. It’s really the individual behind the gun, not the weapon itself,” Cooper said.