The UW Police Department issued a release Tuesday denouncing a recent proposed bill that would allow concealed carry on UW campus grounds and inside buildings, saying the change could put people at risk.
State Rep. Jesse Kremer, R-Kewaskum, and state Sen. Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, announced the bill Monday and said in a memo the intent is to ensure college students can defend themselves should the need arise.
The authors of the bill said in the memo that gun-free zones on campuses “merely serve to concentrate populations of vulnerable targets on campus and surrounding areas.”
UWPD, however, said allowing concealed carry inside university buildings would have a negative impact on student and staff safety.
“The UW-Madison Police Department and the University of Wisconsin-Madison support existing state law, which appropriately balances individual rights with community safety,” Marc Lovicott, the public information officer for UWPD, said in the release.
The release cited statistics from 2014 FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, which say people are less likely to become a victim of a violent crime at UW-Madison than in the rest of Wisconsin, attributing this safety to gun-free zones inside campus buildings.
In an open letter to the Wisconsin people and Legislature, student body president at UW-Milwaukee Mike Sportiello said the current law serves to protect students from others as well as themselves.
Citing studies from the Center for Disease Control and the Harvard School of Public Health, Sportiello said an increase in students with guns could mean higher suicide rates, especially on campuses that have decreased financial support for mental health resources.
“We need to base our decision on how to best create a safe society on evidence and peer-reviewed research before we choose to flood our classrooms, workout facilities, and residence halls where we eat and sleep, with weapons,” Sportiello said in the letter.
It is unclear whether there is more support statewide to change the statute, and Gov. Scott Walker declined to outrightly endorse the measure, saying his office is still reviewing the matter.
“Certainly, we'll look at that legislation,” Walker said, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I think the bottom line is, the biggest fear I have about firearms are people who are not legal to have them in the first place. Those are the criminals.”
UW System President Ray Cross and UW System chancellors also released a brief statement Tuesday, which said the UW System cannot currently support the bill due to “significant concerns and questions.”
The Associated Students of Madison Chair Madison Laning took the same approach, saying the organization is preparing for discussions about the bill’s implications, and said she hopes students, university administration and UWPD will continue to work together.
Laning said she is heartened that there is police presence on campus, but believes their jobs could get harder with more surveillance and security issues that could come from an increase in concealed carry.
“Access to weapons will increase with students having more weapons on campus, and more students will be able to access them even if they don’t specifically have that weapon,” Laning said. “I think that is concerning, and would have to be regulated.
