Tennessee college faculty members will be able to carry guns on campus – if they have a handgun-carry permit – after Gov. Bill Haslam told
The Tennessean on Monday he wouldn't block legislation allowing it.
The bill lets full-time faculty, staff, and other employees at the state's public colleges and universities carry handguns on campus after they tell the law enforcement agency covering the campus.
Haslam is allowing the bill to become law without his signature, saying he believed campuses should make their own decisions on whether weapons should be allowed, said The Tennessean.
"I have long stated a preference for systems and institutions to be able to make their own decisions regarding security issues on campus, and I again expressed this concern throughout the legislative process this year," Haslam said in a statement.
"Although SB 2376 does not go as far as I would like in retaining campus control, the final version of the bill included input from higher education and was shaped to accommodate some of their concerns," he said.
Some University of Tennessee faculty members expressed opposition to the law last week in a poll, reported the
Knoxville News Sentinel. Senate Faculty President Bruce MacLennan said fewer than half of the 1,700 members participated in the poll.
Of those who did, 87 percent said they "strongly disagreed" with the statement "allowing guns on campus is in the best interest of the campus community," noted the News Sentinel.
State Rep. Andy Holt, who sponsored the bill in the Tennessee House, said the measure was created to protect the faculty and others on campus.
"It's not an effort to create an armed battalion on campus but to allow individuals to protect and defend themselves," Holt told The Tennessean, adding that students should be allowed to carry guns as well. "These are adults. We need to stop talking about college students as children. They have the same constitutional rights as others. I think that's an important next step.
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