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Eye On Boise

Testimony: ‘Places for learning, not for killing,’ ‘We have not been made part of the process’

In continuing testimony on SB 1254, the guns-on-campus bill this morning:

Claude Spinosa, a BSU professor emeritus of geosciences who now lives in Sandpoint, told the committee, “Guns are for killing, and I’ve done my share of killing. … The last thing I want on campus is things that kill people. The campuses are places for learning, not for killing. Don’t put guns on campus now.”

Stan Bastian, former state senator and board chairman at the College of Western Idaho, said, “We feel that we have not been consulted, we have not been made part of the process of developing this bill.”

Among others testifying, all against the bill: Chet Herbst, vice president of Lewis-Clark State College; Steve Albiston, president of Eastern Idaho Technical College; Jeff Fox, president of the College of Southern Idaho; Jeff Gunther, police chief for the city of Hailey; and BSU professor Clyde Moneyhun, who said, "I'm asking you to listen to your police - they're trying to tell you something."

Committee Chairman Tom Loertscher, R-Iona, told the next person up to testify, BSU Associate Dean Kirk Smith, to be quick, saying there are about 40 people left to testify and only 20 minutes left.



Betsy Z. Russell
Betsy Z. Russell joined The Spokesman-Review in 1991. She currently is a reporter in the Boise Bureau covering Idaho state government and politics, and other news from Idaho's state capital.

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