Campus Carry Passes Wyoming House, Heads to Senate

Campus Carry legislation passed in the Wyoming House by a margin of 40-19 on Wednesday night.

The legislation is headed for the Wyoming Senate.

NRA-ILA reports the legislation–HB 136–changes state law “to allow a person lawfully carrying with a Wyoming state permit to carry a concealed weapon on any public college or university campus or within any public college or university facility, without having to have the written consent of the security service of the public college or university”

The bill “passed without amendment.” This is important because one of the amendments would have preserved certain campus activities as gun-free, thereby guaranteeing that concealed carry permit holders remain defenseless in certain places.

According to KGAB, Representative Cathy Connolly (D-Albany) questioned the bill. She “is a University of Wyoming professor” and expressed concern about “the presence of firearms with a K-8 school on campus to firearms in UW classrooms and the possible threat of violence from armed students.” But Wyoming’s campus carry legislation is not happening in a vacuum. Colorado has had campus carry since 2003 and while many of the same concerns were voiced, none of them actually materialized.

Moreover, the key point of campus carry is to have guns on campus and in the classroom in the hands of concealed carry permit holders who can defend themselves and their friends should an attack occur.

Representative Scott Clem (R-Campbell County) answered Connolly’s concerns, saying: “I’m not worried about good guys with guns.” He said the people to worry about are those who ignore the gun-free rules that so many campuses have in place.

It is interesting to note that Virginia Tech was gun-free on April 16, 2007, when an armed attacker killed 32 unarmed innocents. Umpqua Community College was gun-free on October 1, 2015, when an armed attacker shot and killed 9 in classrooms on that campus. And Sandy Hook Elementary was gun-free on December 14, 2012, when an armed attacker killed 26 at the school.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.