Students at South Dakota Mines make a bold statement on campus’ weapons policy

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) -As the controversy surrounding gun control laws spreads across the country some students at South Dakota Mines made a bold statement on how they feel about the campus’ weapons policy.

Across from the campus sits a billboard reading “Don’t let President Rankin leave students defenseless.” The billboard, paid for by the Young Americans for Liberty organization, calls for support to change the school’s weapons policy to one that allows campus carry.

Campus carry would allow students, faculty, and staff to be permitted to bring firearms onto school property.

“The main thing is there is a lot of students at S-D mines that commute from somewhere off campus to campus and right now not really allowed to carry a firearm from their house to campus so effectively they are not allowed to carry a firearm at all because if they have to travel to school, they are not allowed to bring it on campus,” said Liam Slavin for Young Americans for Liberty.

In a statement from the school, they say the decisions on “firearm policy for all state institutions for higher learning is set by the South Dakota Board of Regents.”

Members of the school’s branch of the Young Americans for Liberty say they tried with no success to compromise with the school administration.

“We tried to take this policy to the administration and were simply not getting any cooperation with them because I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say well what about this scenario, what about this scenario. It’s like we are willing to discuss those possibilities and try to work out a solution that works for administration and the student body,” said Liam Slavin for Young Americans for Liberty.

The South Dakota Mines says that while the safety of their campus community is of the highest priority they have no plans to make any changes to the policy.

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