Legislative Update

One full week of the 2015 General Session is behind us, and surprisingly, there haven’t been many education bills filed that have caught my attention. The most notable bill filed, HB1077, would allow public college and university staff members to carry concealed handguns on campus. If you recall, guns on college campuses was a hot topic during the 2013 session as well, as I noted here, resulting in the enactment of Act 226 of 2013, which allowed staff members to carry concealed handguns on public and private college and university campuses unless the college or university board of trustees adopted a policy each year expressly disallowing concealed carry on campus. Every public and private college or university in Arkansas adopted such a policy. HB1077 amends Act 226 to remove a college or university’s ability to adopt such a policy, expressly giving staff members the right to carry concealed weapons on campus. It’s worth noting that this applies only to state-funded colleges and universities. Private colleges and universities could still regulate the carrying on concealed weapons on their campuses.

 

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