Ram Page

Issue date: 9/5/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Jason Hook, Photographer

It seems like guns and Texas go hand-in-hand. For a time, students' hunting rifles and bows had their own place at ASU, inside a locker in the university police department.

Beginning in spring semester of 2008, guns have lost their only place on campus.

Sophomore Chandler Myers is an avid hunter and had housed his shotgun with the UPD during the fall 2007 semester. Since the decision to no longer hold students' guns went into effect, Myers has had to look for alternatives to continue to enjoy hunting while attending ASU.

"After Christmas, they wouldn't keep them anymore which forced us to keep them in our trucks," he said. "Then, we were taking a chance of getting them stolen or getting in trouble with the university with having firearms on campus."

The ASU police department is no longer storing hunting weapons for students because of liability issues, UPD Chief James Adams said.

"It's a lot of responsibility on us," Adams said. "If a student checked out a weapon and used it to commit a crime on campus people would point fingers at us saying, 'Well the police gave them the weapon.'"

Adams said after the Virginia Tech shooting and other campus crises they just felt there was too much of risk and liability factor to store weapons for students.

Only hunting rifles and bows were stored in the police department and Adams said it was not uncommon to have 30 to 40 in storage.

"We just don't have the space to accommodate that amount," he said. "Sometimes, we had people that just left them there at the end of the semester."

In order to store a rifle, it had to be checked in by a trained police officer to inspect the weapon, write down the serial number and make sure there was no ammunition in it.

"We didn't just allow anyone to handle the weapons," Adams said. "We weren't going to have an untrained person inspecting them."

Adams said that it got pretty busy during hunting season and having an officer checking in and out rifles takes away time and man power away from the streets.

Another reason the department has chosen to not store students' rifles was to be in compliance with the Texas Tech University System, Adams said.

"We asked them if they had any fallout because of the decision," the chief said.

"They said they hadn't so we decided to go ahead."

He said so far there have been no complaints about the decision to no longer house hunting weapons on campus.

"There have been a few people that have wanted to know why we aren't storing their weapons anymore," Adams said. "But once we explain our reasons to them, they seem to understand."

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools