Testimony: ‘Nothing has changed since 2008’

Testimony at the guns-on-campus hearing has now included the BSU security chief, who opposes the bill and said the campus provides 24/7 security escorts and permits mace and pepper spray for personal protection; a Boise police captain who said guns on campus don’t reduce crime; and university attorney Kevin Satterlee, who submitted documents showing that the United States Military Academy at West point, the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, and the U.S. Air Force Academy all prohibit the carrying of guns on campus, including in football stadiums.

Satterlee said BSU implemented every recommendation from a commission that investigated the Virginia Tech mass shooting, including locating a Boise police substation on its campus; armed Boise Police are now on campus 24 hours a day, seven days a week, he said, and their response time to campus incidents is extremely quick.

Former House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, now BSU’s government relations director, said a deal was struck in 2008 to remove university campuses from promoting gun rights.  “Nothing has changed since 2008,” Newcomb said. He noted that survivors and families of the deceased in the Virginia Tech shooting have sent emails to the committee opposing the bill.

Charlotte Twight, a BSU professor of economics who said she is speaking only for herself, spoke in favor of HB 222, citing a 1998 book several bill proponents have cited, “More Guns, Less Crime,” by John R. Lott Jr. Twight said, “I narrowly escaped being attacked on campus after dark several years ago.” She said, “Existing policy announces to criminals that we are defenseless.” Sen. Bart Davis asked her the same question he’d asked an earlier speaker: “From a public safety standpoint, do you believe that the leaders of my church are wrong when they prohibit guns on campus at BYU and BYU Idaho?” Twight responded, “I believe that based on the factual evidence they have made what seems to me to be an incorrect judgment,” but she said as private institutions they have the right to do that.