The bill allowing Wisconsin citizens to carry concealed weapons, which passed the state Senate Dec. 7, includes an amendment prohibiting guns inside university buildings, leading many to speculate how the measure could potentially affect the UW-Madison campus.
Michael Bruhn, spokesperson for state Rep. Steve Gunderson, R-Waterford, who introduced the bill, said evidence from the 46 other states that currently have some form of concealed carry concluded the areas where guns are banned became less safe.
'If a criminal wants to break the law, he's going to break the law,' Bruhn said. 'The more areas you create where guns are prohibited, those are the areas where crimes tend to take place.'
But according to UW-Madison political science professor Donald Downs, the prohibition of guns in campus buildings, adopted as Senate and Assembly Substitute Amendment Two, is appropriate because classrooms are 'special places.'
'There's no room for guns in a classroom,' Downs said. 'I'm not anti-gun. But this is the house of reason. There used to be a rule out West'you go into a saloon, you leave your guns by the door.'
Dale Burke, assistant police chief of the UW-Madison Police Department, said he thinks the bill is detrimental not only to campus, but to the state as a whole.
'It's bad public policy for all the citizens in the state of Wisconsin and there is nothing in that bill that does anything to make things safer for any of us,' he said.
Bruhn said the opinion of university police on the bill may be influenced by the stance of the university itself.
'It's a politically appointed position, so I would assume that no matter what their feelings are they're going to have the feelings of what the regents and the president of the university has to say,' Bruhn said.
Bruhn added that the amendment could potentially make it easier for criminals to prey on students on campus.
'Now you've created an area where criminals know that they're going to be okay if an individual is going to and from a class,' he said.
Downs said he thinks it is difficult to predict what effect concealed carry could have on campus safety.
'A lot of this is ideological,' he said. 'People are making assumptions about empirical consequences based on what they want them to be. I think in some places it'll be safer and other places will be less safe. It just depends on the nature of that place and that situation.'
