In a recent newsletter to constituents, Senate Assistant Majority Leader Chuck Winder, R-Boise, included an item about the permitless concealed carry bill, which he supports. Winder wrote that two years ago, lawmakers heard similar arguments in support of legislation to allow concealed guns on public college campuses in Idaho, for people with enhanced concealed carry permits. “Those laws passed and we haven’t seen any significant issues as a result. This only furthers my confidence that permitless carry is right for Idaho,” he wrote.

Asked about the September 2014 incident in which an Idaho State University professor accidentally fired his concealed gun while lecturing to a class of students, shooting himself in the foot and winning the state lots of national publicity just two months after the campus-guns bill had taken effect, Winder said, “That was a very isolated situation.”

He said he sticks by his contention that the campus-guns bill hasn’t caused “any significant issues,” saying, “We have not heard a lot from the university presidents or students about problems with that particular bill.” Added Winder: “There are lots more people killed in car accidents than actually shoot themselves, and every loss is a tragedy, no matter how you look at it.” The ISU professor, of course, wasn’t killed, but he was treated and released from a hospital for the injury to his foot.