White: allowing guns on campus is 'unacceptable'

University of Idaho President Tim White talks about his position concerning recent proposals to allow guns on the UI and other college campuses.

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Story Published: Feb 17, 2008 at 5:08 PM PST

Story Updated: Feb 17, 2008 at 5:47 PM PST

By Matt Loveless

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MOSCOW - Legislators are holding up a proposed gun bill, and that's just fine with the University of Idaho administration.

A provision in the bill would have forbid local governments and college administrators from banning guns on Idaho college campuses. UI President Tim White said Friday if the bill had passed as written, they'd have a potentially dangerous situation on their hands.

"It would have allowed concealed weapons, loaded weapons, on the University of Idaho campus, and all the campuses in the state of Idaho," said White. "We just found that to be unacceptable."

Senate Bill 1381 was officially pulled for revision. Language in the bill was cause for concern. White said the shift of authority was an unintended consequence of the bill, as introduced by Senator Curt McKenzie of Boise.

"This is a balance between the rights of the second amendment, which is the right to bear arms, versus safety and security," he said.

White said the balance of concern has been heavily on one side of the issue, and UI's philosophy is very clear.

"Our policy has served us well for many many, many decades," White said. "And that is law enforcement can carry weapons and our students can use weapons on the firing range, or the shooting range and that's it. Other than that we do not want loaded weapons on our campus."

White said the bill isn't dead. The revised version will go to the legislature next week, and from what he's seen, this one will keep guns off campus.

"Give the responsibility for those decisions to where they lie, and that's with the university, and the regents of the University of Idaho, and the State Board of Education to allow, not only for this campuses, but for all campuses in the state. The control should be at the board level," he said.

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