Arkansas Requires Training Component to Campus Carry

By James England

LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS — The Arkansas Senate voted in favor of amending a House Bill requiring universities and colleges to allow faculty and staff to carry concealed concealed on campus. This prompted an additional expansion of the bill which would include students and visitors to be able to participate.

via the Associated Press

“Nobody is claiming 16 hours is going to make you an expert,” Republican Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson said of the training provision, which had been rejected a day earlier by a Senate panel. “But 16 hours is better than no hours.”

This recent legislation is believed to come as a response to a 2013 law allowing staff and faculty to carry concealed on campus at a university’s discretion. No public university opted into that program.

The training requirement appears aimed at critics who worry about the ramifications of concealed carry on campus. However, with that addition, lawmakers saw fit to include the spectrum of people allowed to participate.

“If they want to put that requirement on there, with 16 hours of intense, out-of-pocket expenses, we have to let every Arkansan who wants to go on a college campus be able to participate in that,” Sen. Trent Garner told reporters.

The governor of …Read the Rest

Source:: Concealed Nation