A public safety director opposes a push to allow guns on campuses because he believe it could "easily trigger" stressed students to shoot their schoolmates, Campus Reform reported.
Student groups at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, a public university, are advocating for a policy that would allow guns on campus. The request comes after a number of violent crimes in the area; students believe carrying weapons will help protect staff and students.
However, Greg Lemke, public safety director at Minnesota State University Moorhead, which follows guidelines set by the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system, said the idea would not make the school campuses safe.
"Obviously in a school environment where you have a lot of people, you have a lot of stress and pressures, it could easily trigger somebody to get upset if they had a weapon on them, with them to use that," Lemke said in an interview with Valley News Live, a local news source.
The University of Minnesota -Twin Cities chapter of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), a group that is pushing for a policy that allows guns on campus, did not agree with what Lemke had to say.
"We definitely have more faith in our peers than to assume that in a school environment they would use a weapon for bad," Brittany Johnson, chair of YAL, told Campus Reform. "I don't agree with his logic ... I don't think there's much logic at all, saying students wouldn't be able to control themselves."
Some students sided with Lemke.
"I don't think it'd be a good idea," student Colin Vaadeland told Valley News Live. "I think it'd be actually more harmful if anything, because if something were to come up someone could pull a gun, and that's not exactly safe around here."
There are currently seven states that allow the carrying of a concealed weapon on public post-secondary campuses according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
