State college students unload their views on guns

Oklahoma college students are 20 paces apart in their views about guns on campus, with much of the battle taking place on student-oriented Web sites like Facebook.

Nearly 500 people have joined the Facebook site Students Against Guns on Campus, started by Oklahoma State University students. One of them, Matt Beier, said allowing concealed weapons would make it harder to tell the "good students from the bad” because now any weapon raises an alarm. He said police would find it hard to know which students are a threat and which are protecting themselves.

"I don't think the way we solve the problem is by giving people more guns,” Beier said.

House Bill 2513, as amended last week, would allow weapons on campus if carried by active-duty military and National Guard and Reserve members, honorably discharged veterans, and those with at least 72 hours firearms training certified by the Council on Law Enforcement Education.

The House measure, which also requires a state concealed weapons license, is now before the state Senate.

Beier worries that some military members returning from war zones may not be psychologically stable.

"In no way am I trying to come off as a crazy liberal insulting soldiers,” he said. "I have friends who went to Iraq and fought in the war. But the number of people coming back from Iraq with mental illness is increasing.”

Dustin Gaunder, another OSU student, disagrees that guns would be bad on campus.

He created the 81-member