Editorial: Concealed carry vs. colleges

• In five states, public colleges can no longer ban guns on campus.
• Many states are lax in reporting mental health records to the federal system.
• In many states, a gun permit and a single training course are all you need to legally conceal carry.

In May, when University of Colorado students left Boulder for summer break, their campus was gun-free. Last month, they returned to a campus where just about anyone can carry a gun just about anywhere.

This misguided change wasn't the university's idea. For 136 years, dating to the days of the Wild West, Colorado's flagship university had kept guns off campus. Then, in 2008, two students and a national group called Students for Concealed Carry challenged the ban, and they eventually prevailed in the state's highest court. That made Colorado one of five states — Mississippi, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin are the others — where public colleges can no longer ban guns on campus. (Wisconsin can still ban them inside buildings.)

You don't need a Ph.D. to understand that letting college students pack heat is a recipe for tragedy. More guns on more campuses — places where binge drinking, drug taking and immature judgment are common — will undoubtedly cost more lives than they save.

The gun lobby's push to allow concealed firearms on college campuses gained traction after the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007, when a deranged student killed 32 people in a matter of minutes. Pro-gun groups insist that an armed student or professor might have saved the day. But that notion is as far-fetched as it is alluring.

The odds that a student or professor with a gun might be in the right place at the right time — with the skill, nerve and presence — to deter a criminal are incredibly slim. The notion also assumes that everyone with a concealed gun permit is well trained. Not so.

In many states, including Colorado, a gun permit and a single training course, often lasting a day or less, are all you need to legally carry a concealed weapon. Many courses don't include live firing. In Virginia, people from out-of-state can qualify by taking a course online.

Still not convinced that arming students is risky? Consider this: In New York City this summer, when police shot and killed a gunman on the street near the Empire State Building, they also wounded nine innocent bystanders. Imagine what might happen with armed amateurs firing away in a darkened theater, or a barroom brawl.

Mass shootings are rare on campuses. One way to protect students and professors is to ensure that armed campus security can respond quickly to any incidents. An even better way is to identify individuals who pose a threat and make it harder for them to get guns and ammunition.

Background checks are designed to keep the mentally ill, like the Virginia Tech shooter, from buying guns, but many states are lax in reporting mental health records to the federal system. Among the worst offenders: Mississippi and Utah, two of the states where universities are no longer allowed to ban firearms.

Colorado, of course, was home to this year's Aurora theater shooting and the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. It doesn't need any more tragedies. Some Colorado professors and students, upset by guns on campus, are pushing for a new law to bring back the ban. They know there are smarter ways to protect students than arming them for potential gun fights.