Barely reaching quorum, the Student Senate met Thursday evening in an irregular meeting where it supported guns on campus and opposed raising the legal smoking age. After much debate, the Senate passed a resolution endorsing Louisiana legislation to allow guns on campus. The student resolution supports Louisiana House of Representatives Bill No. 199, now under consideration in the House. If passed, the bill will authorize concealed handgun permit holders to bring their firearms onto Louisiana’s higher education campuses. The resolution was passed after hours of debate, during which the Senate considered two opposing resolutions: one against House Bill No. 199 and the other advocating it. The student resolution against the House bill failed to pass, and the resolution supporting the House bill – supporting guns on campus – reached a tie vote from the student representatives. Senate Speaker and President-elect Colorado Robertson cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the resolution. The two-hour debate of the resolution – which spilled over from Wednesday’s meeting – included hypothetical scenarios, Second Amendment considerations and scrutiny of Louisiana’s concealed handgun regulations. Much of the debate centered around whether the regulated presence of guns on campus would lead to an increase or decrease of campus safety. Corey Graham, College of Engineering senator who wrote the resolution supporting concealed guns on campus, said it was an issue of students’ rights. He said the right of citizens to bear arms should not be infringed upon, even if it made some students feel uncomfortable. “I feel that it is the right of these students to bring … their arms to school, concealed, with a permit,” Graham said. “I feel that it would help.” Sen. Chris Sellers, University College Center for Freshman Year, spoke in opposition to House Bill No. 199. He argued the purpose of a university is to serve as a center of learning, and guns on campus would be a distraction. “Safety is an issue on campus. We know it,” Sellers said. “But this is not the solution.” During debate, many senators raised the question of whether the divided Senate could offer a consensus of student opinion. “We don’t have to pass one of these tonight,” said Sen. Timothy Brinks, E.J. Ourso College of Business. “We can vote these both down and not send one if we feel like they don’t adequately represent the student body.” After the resolution supporting concealed handguns passed, Drew Prestridge, Governmental Relations Committee chair, began a motion to rescind it. The motion failed to pass. The Senate also faced dual resolutions concerning another bill before the state legislature. House Bill No. 240 seeks to raise the “minimum age to buy or possess tobacco” from 18 to 21. As with the concealed handgun resolutions, one of the student body’s resolutions sought to support this House legislation, while the other was against it. The student resolution which supported raising the age failed to pass the Senate, and the resolution to keep the age as it is – at 18 – was enrolled. This resolution, along with the earlier bill supporting guns on campus, will be sent to the Louisiana House of Representatives for its consideration. Already a continuation of the previous night’s session, the Senate pushed to conclude the remaining legislation before the meeting’s 10:45 p.m. deadline. The Senate supported another piece of House legislation, House Bill No. 428, which will offer to use student academic registration information to register students to vote. House Bill No. 428 stipulates that such information would only be used with the student’s permission. The Senate passed a resolution urging the administration to better fund the University’s debate team. The Senate also passed two environmentally-themed pieces of legislation. The first requests the University cease using cypress mulch for campus landscaping, and the second encourages the University to employ more environmentally sustainable methods.
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