Legislators misfire

Lawmakers look foolish in scramble to fix mistake

The Arkansas Legislature couldn’t act quickly enough last week to remove the specter of gun-toting fans packing into college ball games.

The lawmakers were cleaning up a mess of their own making and, in the process, handed the National Rifle Association a rare loss.

In back-to-back votes on Thursday and Friday, first the House and then the Senate exempted collegiate sporting events from the state’s newly expanded law allowing concealed carry of handguns on campus and in certain other public places.

The NRA had supported the expansion but not the fix. The national gun rights advocacy organization lobbied for an even more liberal concealed-carry law for Arkansas and got much of what it wanted.

State Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, sponsored the original bill and let it be amended greatly to satisfy the NRA. He had the good sense to encourage the latest round of changes, however, as did large majorities in both chambers of the Legislature. The House voted 71-20 and the Senate 27-3.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson is expected to sign the legislative fix, which also exempts a couple of additional venues. One is the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the other the state hospital.

Arkansas State Police, already tasked with developing active-shooter training that will qualify people for an enhanced permit, will get additional duties under the amended law. They must review and approve security plans for any “firearm-sensitive areas,” such as a football stadium at a public college or university.

The fix came barely more than a week after lawmakers sent Hutchinson the first bill, which allows people with concealed-carry licenses to take eight hours of active-shooter training to qualify for carrying their handguns on college campuses, in government buildings and some bars. (Bar owners can opt out allowing handguns, but governments and college campuses cannot.)

The governor signed it, although he was quick to get behind the next bill to fix its problematic impact on college sports.

The uproar came quickly last week as folks realized the Legislature was opening up venues like Razorback Stadium and Bud Walton Arena to pistol-packing fans.

Both the Southeastern Conference and the Sun Belt Conference weighed in to urge changes. (The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville is part of the Southeastern Conference while Arkansas State University and the UA at Little Rock are Sun Belt schools.)

The possibility that self-appointed fans might bring their guns to games also had the UA’s head football coach in Fayetteville ruminating about the safety of his players. He could imagine how parents of recruits, particularly from states where people are less attached to their firearms, might react.

And think for a minute what UA Athletic Director Jeff Long must have thought of the potential for fans to stay away from a stadium the UA is renovating and needs to fill to cover the debt.

No one made any direct threats, although the first round of reactions included calls for the NCAA not to allow its players to play in what might be a gun-rich environment.

A statement from the commissioner of the Southeast Conference certainly implied potential fallout, if the law stood.

He wrote of the “intense atmosphere surrounding athletic events” and said the introduction of weapons “increases safety concerns and could negatively impact” the UA’s intercollegiate athletics program in several ways. He specifically mentioned scheduling, officiating, recruiting and attendance.

More than 200,000 Arkansans already hold concealed-carry permits. How many of them or how many more might seek the added training to be able to carry their weapons in more public places?

The answer is “too many.”

Yes, people who bother to get the training and earn permits may have nothing but the best of intentions when they strap on a gun under a jacket or tuck one in a purse. But accidents happen and there is reason to worry about the presence of more guns, especially in volatile environments.

That “intense atmosphere” the SEC commissioner was talking about involves rabid fans, some of whom have fueled their fervor with alcohol in pre-game tailgating.

The Legislature looked downright foolish for creating such potential for accidental or purposeful misuse of guns.

The saddest part of all of this is that, while the messages from the SEC and the Sun Belt and from the Razorback coaches got through to lawmakers, the legislators still didn’t really hear the concerns that university professors and administrators and others raised against letting so many guns enter the campus environment in Arkansas.

A football or basketball or baseball recruit may not have to worry about too much exposure to guns when he suits up for a ballgame, now that the law is being changed.

But he or she — and thousands of other students, faculty and staff on each of the public campuses — should be wary that guns could be pretty much anywhere else they go on an Arkansas campus.