Should Campus Cops carry guns?

[Soon2bRookie]

I work for a University Police department, and we are fully armed, just as any local or county agency. Just for the record, we performed a felony stop on friday..i don't see how you could do one without firearms. With a campus of nearly 45,000 students and on game days over 100,000..we need to be fully equipt. Just as much happens on our campus as any city, if no more.

[EricTheBald]

You know...

I went to college, believe it or not. Kent State, arguably the most PC school in the country. (And the only one whose unoffical school song was written by Neil Young :D )

Anyhow, their cops were armed.


I don't know about anyone else, but I WANT my police to be armed. I mean, an unarmed cop is like an unarmed soldier.
Both of them go through the vast majority of their careers never needing to use a gun.
But when they need one, they need it BAD.

If I am ever being held with a gun to my head and there are cops standing there trying to deal with the situation, I want to be able to shout; SHOOT THIS MOTHERF***ER!!!

[elisa8002]

Temple University and University of Pennsylvania both carry guns, they come through the Acadmey with the Philadelphia Police. They are sworn in with us and carry the same MPO certificate.

[mcsap]

Our local college has uniformed student security officers. They carry a radio and a cell and they know how to dial 911. That works out fine.

[Stump]

Originally posted by mcsap
Our local college has uniformed student security officers. They carry a radio and a cell and they know how to dial 911. That works out fine.

Amen.

[Zwitterion]

When I went to highschool in Little Rock, we had a armed cop assigned to school all year long, and I didn't feel anything wrong with that. Although luckily nothing that would require an armed cop happened during the years I went there.

During my first year in college in Conway Ar, all the campus police are armed as well, again, I see nothing wrong with that as well.

[Switchback]

mcsap,
Out of curiosity, how big is that school?

The college I started in was 850 men, and that was it. No real need for any security there.

I transferred to a larger school to go ROTC. Well, that school had more students than most midwestern towns! The student population was 38K when I was there. I think it would be horribly irresponsible to not have a campus police department.

I think having armed campus police depends mostly on the size of the school, first, and then on the location. Regardless, once the decision is made to have armed police officers, they should go throught the same training as the city/county police officers in that state. That's how it is done here and I think it is a great way to do it. There should be no such thing as a "watered down" police officer.