BOCA RATON, Fla. — The tragedy at Michigan State University that claimed three lives has awakened a long-debated topic: should concealed carry be allowed on college and university campuses?
WPTV looked into the issue and how Florida's law compares to other states.
Backpacks are not the only weight college students carry with them to class these days.
"I just wake up every day, and I just pray to the Lord that he protects us all, everywhere we go," Florida Atlantic University student Cynthia Lopez said.
RELATED: FAU students sound off on-campus security following Michigan St. shooting
The fear of mass shootings is real, and its resurfaced a long-debated topic on whether guns should be allowed on campus.
At Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, the answers vary.
"Personally, I'm against it," Florida Atlantic University student Michelle Souza said.
"I have that discussion with a lot of my friends and I really don’t know where I stand on that," Lopez said.
"I see both sides, honestly, like yeah, if someone was like concealing a gun they might have been able to take him out … before he hurt others, but then if like someone is having a really bad day you don’t know how they would react," Florida Atlantic University student Mads Jensen said.
Florida law does not allow anyone to carry a gun on college or university campuses, but you are allowed to keep a gun in your car.
"They're not allowed in the dormitories," Bob Harvey, a member of the group Florida Carry, said. "They’re not allowed in housing. They’re not allowed in classrooms. They are allowed in the car."
Florida Carry is a grassroots organization that works to protect the gun rights of Florida residents.
Harvey said the organization filed lawsuits against Florida universities that tried to prevent gun owners from keeping their guns in their cars.
"It's not the law-abiding citizens that are doing this," Harvey said.
According to BestColleges.com — a research and college ranking website — about 16 states allow individual colleges and universities to ban or allow guns on campus. Georgia's "campus carry" law amended last year allows concealed permit carry of guns on campus in certain buildings.
Everytown For Gun Safety — an organization that advocates against gun violence and for gun control — said there is no reason to believe allowing guns on campus would prevent a mass shooting or stop an in-progress shooting, saying the following:
"Under extreme duress, an armed college student or university professor cannot be expected to transform into a specially trained tactical police officer."
"If we were to have guns on campus, it should be by trained security or police officers, which we have," Souza said.
As mass shootings continue in America, so do the conversations about solutions.
"There should be armed personnel, whether its professors or janitors or whoever that can be an instant responder, as opposed to waiting for someone," Harvey said. "The irony of it is, when we have a mass shooting, people yell, 'It's the gun issue,' but yet the first person that’s called is a man with a gun."
