Accidental Shooting Near Campus Hours Before City Gun Forum

By February 8, 2013

A UA student was injured early Friday afternoon — hours before a city gun forum was scheduled to take place —  after accidentally shooting himself in the hand at the KUAF radio station in Fayetteville, according to UA police.

The shooting occurred at around 12:30 p.m. Friday when the firearm discharged in the student’s hand after he took it out of his backpack to show another person in the lobby of the radio station, said Lt. Matt Mills, spokesman for UAPD. At this time, it is not known if the person being shown the gun was a student or faculty member.

UAPD was notified of the shooting at 12:36 p.m. The student was taken to Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville with non-life threatening injuries, Mills said.

The student was in work study with KUAF, Mills said. The Federal Work Study Program provides jobs to undergraduate and graduate students with financial need, and allows them to earn money and pay back schooling expenses.

The name of the student is not yet being released and it is unknown if the student had a concealed carry license, Mills said. The firearm was a Taurus Judge pistol, which shoots .45 long colt bullets and shotgun rounds.

KUAF is a National Public Radio affiliate from the UA in Fayetteville and sister station to the UA student radio station, KXUA.

The shooting occurred less than four hours before the beginning of a Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce meeting in which representatives of the Arkansas legislature hosted a public forum concerning a bill that would allow faculty and staff of Arkansas universities to carry concealed weapons on campuses.

  • guest

    Are guns allowed to be carried into that space?

  • aduplant

    Firearms aren’t allowed on campus, period. Current legislation sponsored by an Arkansas State Representative is trying to make it legal for certain licensed faculty and staff to carry concealed weapons on Arkansas campuses; this sponsor has also indicated that he’ll push similar legislation that would allow concealed carry for students, so we’d have more of these kinds of idiotic instances to look forward to. Sign this petition to help prevent our State Reps from making such a grave mistake: http://signon.org/sign/against-concealed-carry

  • aduplant

    Apologies, I read it as KXUA (on campus) not KUAF (“near campus”). I have no idea if guns are allowed in the KUAF building but, since it’s the local NPR affiliate, I suspect not.

  • Jason

    This person was neither licensed to carry concealed nor a teacher. Please don’t throw the legislation about allowing teachers that have a concealed carry permit to carry on campus in with the ignorant, unlicensed student that has a gun accident near campus.

  • Alex

    KUAF is University property. It is technically on campus.

  • ranger

    What if this was actually a publicity stunt managed and instigated by the ‘no guns’ on campus party?

  • HiemsLonga

     This is unfortunately the response many had to other tragedies, like Sandy Hook. It is as deplorable and silly as claiming that 9/11 is an inside job. Why can’t you just accept that young, hot head twenty somethings are not responsible enough to carry loaded firearms about town?

  • HiemsLonga

     Right…let’s have six hundred more kids carrying around loaded pistols. That will make us safer.

  • HiemsLonga

    I’m not too much older than most of the folks on campus, and I have the
    pleasure of teaching them. My students are great, the smartest of the
    smartest. But given their cumulative life experience – especially
    concerning disaster situations – I wouldn’t trust any of them with a
    loaded firearm in the face of danger. So you’re telling me that Johnny
    the frat boy, after he hears gunshots, is going to pull out his glock
    and save the day? And then when Jim the 25 year old cop who has never
    encountered someone with a weapon finds Johnny, he isn’t going to blow
    his brains out as soon as seeing him? You’re telling me that thirty hot
    heads walking around with pistols looking for the bad guy aren’t going
    to turn the situation into a battle royale? And that we faculty members
    are supposed to express our thoughts freely during lectures without the
    fear of having a weapon pulled on us by a deranged student? There is
    zero thought going into this measure. It is all ideological roo-raa. I’d
    invite everyone who supports concealed carry on campus to spend an
    afternoon in the Union. Listen to the conversations of the kids around
    you, and ask yourself, are these humans anywhere near capable of
    successfully handling a firearm during a tragic situation? 

  • Guest

    You raise all these horrifying hypotheticals, but these are the same people who responsibly carry everywhere else in our society (studies show they are 300 times less likely to commit a violent crime than the general population) and who, when they do have to fire in self defense wound less innocent people than police officers (as per newsweek magazine and a study by the University of Chicago). Now, the data and empirical evidence categorically disprove your statement. But, lets indulge in anecdotal arguments for a moment, please cite a SINGLE instance where anything close to what you just proposed has happened. I promise you that even with the best google-fu you will NOT be able to- because it hasn’t happened. There is nothing unique about college campuses that makes concealed carry on them uniquely dangerous or different from the rest of our society- they are as crowded as a mall or shopping center and no less likely to lead to angry situations than a highway, workplace, etc. In fact, studies again show concealed carriers are MUCH less likely to engage in violent action than the general population. Your argument about teacher safety is completely disingenuous because it implies that persons with a license to concealed carry- meaning they have gone through extensive state/federal/psychiatric background checks- will threaten teacher safety. Nothing could be farther from the truth. NOTHING stops a student who gets mad and wants to shoot a teacher from bringing a gun onto campus in the status quo- the metal sign does nothing to deter him! It just means he committed a (comparatively) small legal infraction before committing the monumental crime of  murder/attempted murder. These bills don’t “arm” anyone,they don’t allow immature or underage people to bring guns willy nilly onto campus. It simply allows qualified and trained people who have earned the right to carry a weapon safely and lawfully everywhere else in our society to extend that right to campus, where the ONLY time anyone will ever be the wiser that anything has changed is if one of these people has to use that weapon to protect their life or the life of someone around them from an imminent and immediate threat. Concealed carriers have educated themselves by taking courses to become knowledgeable about the circumstances in which they can use their weapons, how to use them, the laws pertaining to self defense, and the legal protections (or lack thereof) that their ccw license grants them- I’d encourage you to d the same.

  • Guest

    People who are 21 +, have received training and certification from state licensed professions (almost universally former law enforcement/military personnel), and have a license issued by the governor and state police of the state of Arkansas are not KIDS. Language is not neutral, describing these persons as such is offensive and denigrating- attempting to cast doubt on the maturity of these adults. 18 is the age of majority in the United States, 21 is the age of “full” majority where one can no longer be denied rights based on age- the only kid here is the person who, using loaded language, childishly seeks to denigrate the opposition to their narrow and irrational viewpoint. For clarity’s sake, that would be you.

  • HiemsLonga

    I fundamentally disagree. 21 year olds may be legally adults. But I invite you to take a trip to Dickson this Friday evening at 1:30 AM. Ask yourself if those 21-24 year olds, many of whom have little real life experience, have truly developed beyond childhood.

  • guest

    Maybe you have never worked at a college or university, but there are reasons faculty and many, many SGAs oppose students carrying on campus. Regardless of the training a person has had, college classrooms can be volatile, they’re not like going to Walmart or a restaurant. Students come to class hungover or still a bit drunk from the night before. In the dorms, they live very closely with fellow students and fights happen all the time. You add guns into that mix and accidents or crimes of passion could increase. I’m not saying they will happen, but the likelihood increases.  Most of us don’t want the risk. The chance of a gunman coming onto campus is miniscule compared to the possibility of accidents. At the U of Colorado, they set aside an entire residence hall for gun carriers and not one student signed up to live there, probably because they understand the risk when you live at such close quarters with people who are still maturing. Even at 21, people aren’t fully mature and they do make mistakes.  I work with college students of all ages and many of them come to school upset, exhausted, etc. I wouldn’t feel safe knowing there were guns in my classrooms or in a student’s backpack if they came to talk me about a grade and were upset about it.

  • Tmillic

    Allowing concealed carry permit holders will also increase the number of non-permit holders bringing guns to campus. Why? If someone thinks other people are bringing theirs, they’ll want to do the same, whether they have a permit or not. Fear is not conducive to learning. If you want to create an environment of fear to justify your own, or if you’re too afraid to go anywhere, even class, without your guns, stay home. We’ll all feel better.

  • Guest

    Nothing stops them from bringing a gun to your classroom now, absolutely nothing! Why do legally owned guns, owned by the safest and most responsible members of society scare you? No one is advocating arming every student on campus, rather, the proposal is allowing the kind of responsible people who don’t engage in the kind of behavior you just mentioned to exercise that right on campus and maybe prevent you or another professor from being hurt or killed by the kind of disgruntled or crazy student you are talking about. The status quo does NOTHING to protect you, why can’t you see that?

  • Guest

    You say the risk of a gunman is miniscule compared to the chance of an accident, but how many mass shootings have happened on our college campuses in the past 20 years? How many concealed carriers have had an accidental injury on a college campus in that same amount of time? I can tell you, none. I believe you have the balance of odds completely backwards in this discussion.

  • Guest

    That’s absolutely ridiculous. We already know other people are bringing their weapons to school, the kind of criminals and careless people that the current laws do nothing to prevent! The status quo offers absolutely ZERO safety to anyone on campus. Why should trained and certified persons not be allowed to carry on a campus when they carry safely everywhere else? Allowing concealed carry doesn’t cause “fear”! It provides actual, real safety. Are you afraid for your life whenever you go anywhere off campus? No, you aren’t, yet if you see more than 20-25 adults off campus in a day, statistically you are almost guaranteed to have met someone with a concealed weapon. There’s no environment of fear in the rest of Arkansas, and there won’t be one on campus when these bills pass. What does follow concealed carry is a mindset of personal responsibility. If you don’t believe in that, then no one is making you go the U of A.

  • Tmillic

    Ridiculous? It’s the author’s argument, not mine. The bill’s author claims that fear of retaliation is what will keep attackers away. That is hoping to bring a false sense of safety by creating a greater sense of fear on campus. Since you disagree with his argument, perhaps you should encourage your representative to vote against his bill?
    There are a plethora of arguments for and against the bill authors’ idea that if an attacker knows someone has a gun, they’re less likely to attack; many of which
    rely on “what-ifs” and anecdotal evidence. So what really happens if
    would-be-attackers know someone has a gun? Gun proliferation advocates
    demonstrated themselves what they know will happen when the New York
    Times published the names of gun owners. They raised hell saying that it
    makes them LESS safe if someone knows they have a gun. If
    gun-proliferation advocates say it makes them less safe when it comes
    down to it, how can this argument be used to say that having more guns
    on campuses will make the students, faculty, and staff safer? It can’t.
    People often point to Switzerland (because they heard someone else do it) and claim that they have military weapons in every household and are one of the safest nations. There are two problems with that, not everyone keeps their military-issue rifle. Those that do, can only do so after the firing mechanism is removed making it an ordinary rifle. Still, Switzerland is number 22 out of 75 nations reporting in firearm deaths. What countries are actually safer than Switzerland? I’ll put the list at the end of this.
    Yes, people carry guns on campus illegally already. Not as many as there will be if the bill passes, but it does happen. Gun proliferation advocates say they want to do something like strengthen background checks, but when it comes down to it, that can’t be done without registration programs as well. They seem to want to keep guns readily available to criminals rather than adopt legislation to address the problem. Decades of doing just what the gun proliferation advocates want is what got us here in the first place. Why keep it up? Why keep letting children and other innocent people die so that the gun proliferation advocates can keep their toys? That is not responsible gun ownership. Responsible gun owners have nothing to worry about, but they’re afraid to do anything about the irresponsible owners.
    So, what countries have fewer firearms deaths than Switzerland?
     Costa Rica
     Uruguay
     Croatia
     France
     Barbados
     Austria
     New Zealand
     Estonia
     Slovenia
     Belgium
     Malta
     Peru
     Israel
     Luxembourg
     Norway
     Portugal
     Czech Republic
     Slovakia
     Lithuania
     Georgia
     Greece
     Sweden
     Denmark
     Latvia
     Bulgaria
     Italy
     Kuwait
     Iceland
     Germany
     Australia
     Republic of Macedonia
     Moldova
     Ireland
     Kyrgyzstan
     India
     Hungary
     Cyprus
     Uzbekistan
     Spain
     Netherlands
     Taiwan
     Belarus
     Ukraine
     Poland
     United Kingdom
     Singapore
     Romania
     Mauritius
     Hong Kong
     Qatar
     South Korea
     Japan
     Azerbaijan
     Chile

  • Nope

    I have the pleasure of knowing the student who shot himself.  This was nothing to do with gun control or potential campus shootings.  What it boils down to is that the person in question is and idiot.  No – not for bringing the gun to school – he is a real life idiot.  Ex – stoner without much common sense.  He’s a smart and funny guy…but isn’t all there.  Trust me, he didn’t really think this through.  I’ve seen the gun in question in person – I guarantee all he was doing was showing it off as a new toy.

  • Upright

    It makes gun owners less safe because thieves prize guns and they will target their homes when they’re gone hoping to steal their guns. You look foolish confidently affirming what you know nothing about.

  • TUMBO

    Well put friend. Our euphorian counterparts want to live in a world that doesn’t exist and we are willing to protect them, if they let us.