Marty Peterson, assistant to the president of the University of Idaho, told the House State Affairs Committee, "Under current policies, the state allows local control at the institutional level to determine campus firearms policies. This allows each institution to adopt policies that best suit the needs of the individual institution. Under HB 222, these policies would be centralized and controlled by state law rather than being responsive to local needs." He also pointed out a problem in the bill as it applies to the UI: It would permit state colleges and universities to ban guns only in undergrad dorms, but, he said, "At the UI we don't have housing that is specified as undergraduate or graduate student housing. Both undergraduate and graduate students are housed in the same units. Presumably this would mean that graduate students living in the dormitory could have firearms, but undergraduates could not."

Peterson said the community had an incident in which an armed student tried to assist when there was a shooting. When a sniper attacked people in downtown Moscow, "A UI student living nearby grabbed his 45-caliber semi-automatic pistol and approached the shooting scene to try to assist. The sniper spotted the student and fired." The student was struck three times in multiple rounds fired from the sniper's AK-47, and was never able to fire his gun. "Fortunately, he lived," Peterson said. He said the university is currently in litigation over the question of guns being allowed in student housing. "We believe that the courts rather than the Legislature are the appropriate place for this to be decided, " he said. He noted that the university, the faculty senate, and the associated students at UI all oppose HB 222.