Can I Carry A Gun on Campus and Live?

Can I Carry A Gun on Campus and Live? May 4, 2016

guns-2Effective July 1, 2016, as long as they notify law enforcement officials on campus “full-time faculty, staff and other employees of Tennessee’s public colleges and universities who have handgun-carry permits to carry their guns on campus.” According the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Senate sponsor, Mike Bell, a Republican from Riceville said, “I think it’s a good bill, and I think it will enhance campus safety.” House sponsor, Rep. Andy Holt, a Republican from Dresden said, “The purpose of running the bill is campus safety. It’s not an effort to create an armed battalion on campus but to allow individuals to protect and defend themselves.”

Again, the bill does stipulate that one must have a gun permit and notify the law enforcement agency on campus that you have a conceal weapon. And while the “bill does not allow students to go armed on campus,” prohibits employees from carrying their guns during “school-sponsored events, such as football and basketball games,” and to take them in “meetings regarding disciplinary matters or tenure issues, or in a “hospital or an office where medical or mental health serves are the primary services provided,” representative Holt is pushing for a bill that would allow students, indeed everyone to carry guns on campuses. Holt intention is to “eliminate all gun-free zones, whether it’s the Legislature or a college campus.”

However, this is not my overriding concern about the bill. I would like to know if this means that black people can also carry concealed guns on campuses now. Did the state of Tennessee mean for black people to carry concealed guns on campuses now?  I really ask this question in all seriousness because first, I know how law enforcement and really folks in general feel about black folks having guns and two; I know what happens to black folk even in open and carry states when they have guns.  John Crawford and Tamir Rice are some recent real life examples of this. Whether the gun is in the store for purchase or a toy gun, black folks many times are on the wrong side of a bullet. So I ask again, is this law meant for me and other black folks to carry our guns on campus?

Seriously, as a black man, can I carry my concealed gun on campus and not get harassed? What if I am searched and they find a concealed gun on me? What will they do? Will they detain me, arrest me, or worse will they just shoot me and say the magic words, “I feared for my life?” I wonder will I get the benefit of the doubt, that split second to see and understand that all I am doing is being a good citizen and doing my part at enhancing campus safety. Is this law for me or is it another law couched in second amendment rights designed to give others opportunity to shoot me dead because they “feared for their lives?” I wonder if I can carry a gun and live.

Andre E. Johnson is the Founder and Managing Editor of R3

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