History
The group was created following the April 16, 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech and as of August 2007, there were chapters at more than 60 colleges nationwide. As of April 2008, there were official chapters at over 215 campuses and members at hundreds of campuses without official chapters, for a total of more than 25,000 members nationwide. That figure represented an increase of more than 5,000 over the previous month, and membership has grown substantially following the shooting at Northern Illinois University. As of March 2009, the group had official chapters at 363 campuses in 46 states and the District of Columbia, and membership had grown to over 38,000. The group differs from other gun rights advocacy groups in that it chooses to maintain a narrow focus on the issue of concealed carry by licensed individuals on college campuses, refusing to take official positions on other gun-related issues. Also, unlike other gun rights groups, SCC chooses to focus on statistical, fact-based arguments, rather than arguments that revolve around the U.S. Second Amendment.
Laws vary from state to state in the United States of America, however 30 states statutorily ban weapons at post-secondary schools. Of the 20 states where licensed concealed carry is not legally forbidden, 19 allow schools to adopt their own gun policies. It is exceedingly rare for schools in these 19 states to allow licensed concealed carry by rule. The two best-known examples are Colorado State University, and Blue Ridge Community College, in Weyers Cave, Virginia. Utah is the only state that specifically requires public universities to allow licensed concealed carry on their grounds. Further, a 2003 study revealed that 150 major colleges and universities restricted firearms in some form. A total of 82 banned guns completely, 25 required them to be stored in a central facility, and another 27 restricted possession to certain groups such as ROTC units and shooting teams.
In December 2010, the organization officially changed their name from "Students for Concealed Carry on Campus," to "Students for Concealed Carry."
Read more about this topic: Students For Concealed Carry
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