Student Advocates for Gun Rights Amidst Campus Carry Controversy

In a true act of bravery, South Dakota State University student Keegan Reeves put himself in the public square as he laid out a firm stance criticizing the University’s anti-firearms policies, which he claims make the school a prime target for those with criminal intent. According to the student-run paper the Collegiate, Reeves went to speak on behalf of multiple pro-firearms student groups at a meeting of the university’s Student Association, stating here was there to represent the many “students who feel the gun rights issues weren’t given a chance to be fully represented by both sides,” and that “We feel we were truly ignored.” Currently, students and faculty may conceal carry firearms on campus but must go through a process of notifying campus police and store their firearms at the campus police department overnight. Criticisms over campus carry laws over the last decade have escalated due to the increase in school shootings, but the spotlight fell on SDSU when a student discharged his weapon in his dorm room, causing only increased animosity from certain students and faculty wishing to change the current policy, which the Student Association intended to vote on last week. In the South Dakota state legislature, a bill was pushed to ban gun-free zones on public university campuses. According to a statement provided to the Argus Leader by one of the bill’s sponsors, “The South Dakota Constitution guarantees citizens’ the right to bear arms” and that “gun-free zones do not work.” The bill also covered issues ranging from student classroom safety to “potential complications to Title IX sexual assault, stalking and harassment cases on campuses.” Time after time, each travesty shows that gun free zones are hotbeds for criminal activity. Gun rights activist Antonia Okafor stated in a fact-based op-ed at the Hill that “In the United States, guns are used as many as 2.5 million times a year in self-defense, according to some estimates, preventing countless tragedies from ever becoming a news story.” Currently, students can conceal carry firearms at public universities in Arkansas, Georgia, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, Oregon, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, and Wisconsin. It is the libertarian position that all gun regulations are an infringement upon individual rights and that no man or woman should be deprived of a way of properly and effectively defending their life, liberty, and property.