Guns. Is your heart racing yet? Gun control is one of the most polarizing, divisive issues and people on both sides take it very personally. 

 

Yet a bill introduced in the state Senate in August has managed to fly under the radar despite its relevance to college students, faculty and staff. 

 

The bill aims to remove college classrooms and dorms from the list of exceptions to where citizens with Concealed Pistol Licenses can carry their guns. 

 

In general, the other existing exceptions are schools, child care centers, sports arenas and stadiums, bars with alcohol as a primary source of income, religious properties, large entertainment facilities and hospitals. There are also 263 additional pages of rules and regulations for firearms in Michigan. 

 

It’s easy to get into a fiery debate about what is and isn’t “common sense” regulation of guns. Common sense being one of the most relative and vague adjectives, while at the same time the most widely used one for gun laws. 

 

But it’s hard to find somebody with the ability to do anything about it, who wants to touch the topic with a 10-foot pole.  

 

However, we would think that since there’s a bill in the state legislature that could have an impact on the university, that Oakland University would be represented in that discussion. 

 

The Post had little luck getting an official stance on the proposed bill from the OU administration. Not even the government relations office was comfortable talking about it. 

 

OU police Chief Sam Lucido did discuss it with us, and he said the thought of students carrying handguns made him wary, with the larceny and crime that already occurs on campus. 

 

But if people considered that this bill — and most other gun laws — are really only going to influence people who follow the law, there’s less to be afraid of. 

 

People who would be affected by this change in CPL exceptions are the law-abiding citizens we encounter every day at work, at Meijer, the bank — without incident and without ever knowing they’re carrying.

 

As stated in the cover story on page 6, Lucido explained his opposition to the bill as partly a concern about people’s judgment with firearms, in relation to the varying levels of maturity found on a college campus. 

 

Understood, but setting personal fear aside to objectively study the bill would reveal that those who would be allowed to carry on campus have already proved a level of maturity to the state and the FBI by getting their carry licenses.  

 

The bill doesn’t make it any more or less likely for sex offenders, felons, the mentally unstable and others who don’t bother obtaining the lawful license to carry a gun, from doing so on campus or in a dorm. 

 

The bill is unrelated to that problem except for the fact that those carrying would be able to protect themselves from criminals on campus, as they already do most other places. 

 

If the point of opposing this regulation is to keep criminals from doing harm, you’re doing it wrong. If anything is frightening, it’s that resources are being used to oppose a bill when they could be used thinking of ways to combat crime.

 

The classic argument against guns on campus is that an unstable student will get upset over a test grade and open fire. What this argument fails to recognize is that those most likely to commit do that will not be the same sort of person who would let a CPL exception stop them at the door. 

 

But the debate which sends a wedge down a good chunk of the electorate cannot be settled in a one-sided conversation, and certainly not on this editorial page. 

 

We are simply asking the OU community to have an open mind, put aside emotions, and have a thoughtful conversation about whether the current law should change.