Joseph Paul

Journal & Courier

Gun owners could carry their firearms onto the Purdue University campus under a measure proposed Tuesday, the first day of Indiana's 2016 legislative session.

House Bill 1055, proposed by Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour, would prohibit state agencies — including public universities — from regulating firearms and ammunition on their properties.

Indiana law grants universities the discretion to ban or allow guns on campus, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Currently, Purdue imposes a "longstanding policy that prohibits weapons on campus," university police Chief John Cox said in a statement Tuesday.

If passed into law, however, the bill would strike out any existing policies on July 1, allowing people who are licensed to carry a handgun to carry concealed firearms on campus. Lucas proposed a similar measure during the beginning of the 2015 session, according the Indianapolis Star, but it never made it past a first reading, according to the Indiana House website.

"I want to decriminalize self-defense and recognize their right to carry firearms lawfully," Lucas told the Star last year.

The bill makes exceptions, including for restrictions placed on individuals involved in community corrections programs or forensic or pretrial diversion programs, according to the Indianapolis Star. Cox, however, said allowing guns on campus causes more problems than it solves.

"We firmly believe that encouraging our campus community to be vigilant and aware of their surroundings and reporting suspicious activities to the proper authorities will do more to enhance campus safety than would permitting the wide-scale carrying of weapons," he said.

Sheila Klinker, D-Lafayette, said she believes the decision to regulate guns should be one made at the local level.

"I think the university should be able to determine what their own campus should do," she said.

The bill comes weeks before the two-year anniversary of the Purdue shooting that claimed the life of student Andrew Boldt, who was killed by classmate Cody Cousins Jan. 21, 2014, in the basement of the Electrical Engineering Building. Cousins was sentenced Sept. 19, 2014, to 65 years in prison but was found dead in his prison cell Oct. 28, 2014.

"Our primary concern is that a change to (Purdue's) policy could negatively impact the dynamics of our campus community and complicate the ability of police and other emergency personnel that would respond to situations in which multiple people could be armed," Cox said.

On the one-year anniversary of Boldt's death, Sen. Brandt Hershman, R-Buck Creek, proposed a bill that would impose the death sentence on school shooters. It was later singed into law, Hershman said.