{"id":90304,"date":"2023-02-23T06:10:46","date_gmt":"2023-02-23T12:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=90304"},"modified":"2023-02-23T06:10:46","modified_gmt":"2023-02-23T12:10:46","slug":"90304","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=90304","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

West Virginia Governor Announces Support for Newly Passed Campus Carry Bill: \u2018I\u2019ll Sign It\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

The Mountain State will soon be the latest to allow those with permits to carry concealed guns on college campuses.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the West Virginia House of Delegates put the finishing touches on\u00a0Senate Bill 10<\/a>. By Wednesday, Governor Jim Justice (R.) announced his intention to sign it into law once it reaches his desk.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s controversial, but from my standpoint, here\u2019s where I stand: I stand rock solid with our Second Amendment,\u201d Justice\u00a0said during a press conference<\/a>\u00a0Wednesday. \u201cWhen this bill comes to me, it won\u2019t be with me but just a matter of seconds because I\u2019ll sign it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Once signed, the bill will make West Virginia one of twelve states to allow gun carry in most areas of campus without an option for school officials to implement gun bans. It arrives at a time of heightened scrutiny over gun carry after the Supreme Court\u2019s June decision in\u00a0<\/span>New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen<\/span><\/em>\u00a0recognized a constitutional right to carry a gun in public for self-defense. Many blue states have rushed to pass laws cracking down on public gun carry in response to the ruling. Meanwhile, red states have continued to expand where civilians can carry in public and sought to eliminate permitting requirements.<\/span><\/p>\n

Governor Justice cited frequent mass shootings across the country committed by \u201cbad, bad, bad actors\u201d that occur on \u201csoft targets\u201d as his reasoning for supporting the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod forbid, but it may very well be that we\u2019ve got somebody on that campus that has a firearm and something bad starts to happen, and they save a bunch of lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Armed bystanders have intervened to stop or prevent mass shootings on numerous occasions throughout the country.\u00a0Elisjsha Dicken returned fire<\/a>\u00a0against a shooter in July 2022 ending an attack on an Indiana mall food court. Similarly, a\u00a0legally-armed bystander shot a gunman<\/a>\u00a0at an El Paso, Texas mall earlier this month.<\/p>\n

He also pointed to long-standing campus carry laws in states like Texas that have been on the books \u201cfor years and years\u201d to show that the policy can be implemented safely.<\/p>\n

The bill would not prevent schools from instituting any and all restrictions on campus carry. But school officials would be limited to baring guns in buildings and other parts of campus with comprehensive security measures, such as metal detectors. Those provisions, however, were not enough to win over opponents of the bill. Some pointed to the recent\u00a0mass shooting at Michigan State<\/a>, where an adult not affiliated with the school shot and killed three students on campus, to argue against the bill.<\/p>\n

Marshall University student\u00a0<\/span>E.T. Bowen said<\/span><\/a>\u00a0college students already feel \u201cterrified on campus,\u201d and adding more guns would exacerbate that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis bill is like throwing kerosene on the wildfire, and it is appalling that we even need to say that while there\u2019s still blood on the ground at Michigan State,\u201d Bowen said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bill\u2019s supporters also pointed to prior mass shootings on college campuses. Delegate Mike Honaker (R.) was a state trooper who responded to the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting. He said the prospect of something like that happening again compelled him to give students a chance to defend themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease hear me: Years ago, I sat on the foot of my bed with Windex and paper towels and I washed the blood of almost 30 kids off of my shoes because of an active shooter on a college campus,\u201d he said,\u00a0according to the\u00a0Associated Press<\/em><\/a>. \u201cI fear that if I do not support this legislation, and it happens again, washing their blood off my shoes will not compare to trying to wash the blood off of my hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bill ultimately passed overwhelmingly on an 84-14 vote. Once signed, it will take effect on July 1, 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

West Virginia Governor Announces Support for Newly Passed Campus Carry Bill: \u2018I\u2019ll Sign It\u2019 The Mountain State will soon be the latest to allow those with permits to carry concealed guns on college campuses. On Tuesday, the West Virginia House of Delegates put the finishing touches on\u00a0Senate Bill 10. By Wednesday, Governor Jim Justice (R.) … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,79,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-schools","category-government","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90305,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90304\/revisions\/90305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}