By Tim Hipps
Mass shootings at soft-target entertainment venues in Las Vegas and Orlando served notice that intercollegiate athletic event managers must be aware of the potential of similar incidents occurring at sports events.
Football games are especially vulnerable targets, according to “Concealed Carry Weapons at Intercollegiate Sport Events: Perceptions of Division I Event Sport Managers,” presented at the 2018 Sport and Recreation Law Association’s annual conference by the Troy University duo of Dr. John Miller and Jeffery Curto, alongside Dr. Todd Seidler of the University of New Mexico.
The study assessed Division I event and operations athletic directors’ perceptions of the potential of concealed guns being carried into athletic contests or being present at nearby tailgate activities before, during, and after games.
In 2016, three Washington state senators proposed a bill that would have allowed fans to bring guns into stadiums, such as CenturyLink Field and Safeco Field. Despite opposition by the NFL and Major League Baseball, the bill would prevent stadiums from banning fans who carry a licensed concealed weapon into their facilities.
In 2017, the Tennessee Senate Judiciary committee passed a bill that allows off-duty police officers and sheriff deputies to carry guns at sporting events at such venues as Bridgestone Arena, Nissan Stadium, and Neyland Stadium. Law enforcement personnel are to notify venues that they plan to carry a firearm at an event.
Georgia House Bill 280, effective July 1, 2017, permits anyone with a concealed carry license to carry firearms on campus, but prohibits them in buildings used for athletic events. Although GA HB 280 does not allow weapons in sports stadiums, it does not ban carrying concealed guns into tailgating areas before home football games.
“What’s the thinking behind some of these?” Miller rhetorically asked. “Or is there a lack of thinking, and really understanding the setting?”
In April 2017, the Kansas Board of Regents approved plans to prohibit the concealed carry of guns in college stadiums and arenas during athletic events with 5,000 or more people.
In March 2017, Arkansas passed a law allowing concealed guns to be brought into sporting venues, including college football games. The bill was amended, making college sporting events exempt. Act 562, which took effect Sept. 1, allows people to take guns onto public college campuses and into bars, churches, and most public buildings, including the state capitol.
Associate and assistant athletic directors for events and operations at 65 Power Five conference Division I universities were contacted via email as a pre-notification regarding their participation in the study. Eighteen (28 percent) responded to the questionnaire.
The results revealed that 65 percent allowed concealed guns onto their campus. Seventy-one percent disagreed that signs existed on the college campus forbidding carrying concealed weapons such as guns. Fifty-three percent disagreed that signs existed inside and outside of sport stadiums, arenas, or fields that forbid spectators from carrying concealed guns.
Eighty-six percent agreed that intercollegiate football games provide an emotional and potentially volatile environment.
Forty-seven percent agreed that concealed weapons have become a primary safety concern;
47 percent disagreed.
Forty percent used multiple methods of checking spectators entering the stadium, such as pat-down, visual inspections, metal detectors (wands), bomb-sniffing dogs, etc. Thirty-three percent used only pat-downs. Twenty-seven percent used only visual inspections of large bags or purses.
None of the respondents’ schools allowed concealed guns to be carried into their stadiums/arenas during an intercollegiate sport contest.
Seventy-five percent believed it is possible that a fan would shoot off a gun during a college football game.
“None of them allowed concealed weapons into the stadium, but seventy-five percent said they wouldn’t put it past any of their patrons to get a concealed weapon into the stadium and actually shoot it off,” Miller said. “Three quarters of them said it wouldn’t surprise me if that happened.”
Seventy-five percent revealed that spectators had been detected carrying a concealed gun into a home football game.
Seventy-one percent allowed concealed guns to be carried in the tailgating area prior to and after an intercollegiate football game at their university.
“While they didn’t allow concealed weapons into the stadium, seventy-one percent allow concealed weapons into the tailgating area,” Miller reiterated. “And when is the tailgating period? Sometimes it starts on Friday afternoon and goes until Sunday.”
Miller, Seidler, and Curto somewhat lightened the sometimes-dark subject of concealed guns support by inserting a slide into their SRLA presentation:
“While previous studies have indicated that university students, faculty, and presidents are not generally supportive of any type of concealed weapons on college campuses, some other people are: ‘Hell, I’d pay extra tuition to send my kid to a school where you not only can binge drink, you can binge drink with a concealed weapon. That’s the kind of thing that prepares them for adulthood in Arkansas. Especially if my kid were a girl, because I’m ready for grandchildren and a drunk frat boy with a pistol makes a persuasive case for fatherhood.’ That slide also featured a bumper sticker that read “GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE” atop a sketch of a handgun and “DADS WITH PRETTY DAUGHTERS DO” encircling the bottom.
Having an understanding of the perceptions of major university sport event managers regarding having concealed carry weapons in intercollegiate stadiums, arenas, or fields will help similarly positioned individuals at other intercollegiate and interscholastic programs, as well as state legislators, the study concluded.
