As Idaho’s controversial new guns-on-campus law takes effect today – allowing people with enhanced concealed carry permits to carry concealed firearms in most areas on public college campuses in the state – a student group that organized against and strenuously protested the new law has issued a statement saying it fears students themselves will bear the costs. Here’s the statement from the Idaho Coalition to Keep Guns Off Campus:

"Our opinions on this law were not taken into account when legislators voted to allow guns in our classrooms and to remove from our institutions the local control that served students best. Our colleges and universities have complied with the law, but Idaho’s students will pay the cost. Idaho politicians have cut higher education funding by 39% in six years. Meanwhile tuition has skyrocketed. This unfunded mandate will be borne on the backs of students who protested it in the first place. The governor called on the legislature to ‘appropriately and carefully monitor, oversee and manage those difficulties and costs’ but considering legislators' track record supporting higher education, it’s hard to believe that will happen. We do hope that in the future Idaho’s politicians will take into account the will of the people who are most affected by a law.”

During this year’s legislative session, the student group delivered hundreds of letters to the governor and Legislature from students and faculty members opposed to the new law, presented petitions with nearly 3,000 signatures opposing it,m and organized a rally on the Capitol steps.