BOZEMAN Mont.
Montana State
University plans to restrict
firearms and ban concealed weapons from campus, steps that gun-rights activists
argue would make students more vulnerable if a Virginia Tech-style gunman were
to threaten the MSU campus.
In April, a mentally disturbed Virginia Tech student shot
and killed 32 people in a dormitory and classroom building before killing
himself. In 1990 at MSU, Brett Byers fatally shot two other students in a
dormitory.
“The only thing a gun-banning policy will accomplish is
to insure that this madman has a pool of defenseless victims to kill, that he
will encounter no effective resistance as he carves a swath of death through
the MSU campus,” wrote Gary Marbut of the Montana Shooting Sports
Association, an affiliate of the National Rifle Association.
MSU received nearly 100 comments on the proposed update of
its weapons policy and only about two supported the proposed weapons
restrictions, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported Monday.
The overwhelming majority, about 70, agreed with Marbut that
banning concealed weapons and restricting firearms would make the campus more
dangerous.
“Had there been more loaded guns in view, and
accessible, the carnage at VA Tech could have been either completely averted or
minimized, not by a brave professor using his own body as a shield, but by a
responsible adult student with a concealed weapons permit,” wrote Danielle
D. Emery of Billings.
