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Poll: Arizonans oppose bill to allow guns on campus
Arizonans are overwhelmingly against a measure that would allow licensed, concealed handguns in schools, according to a Cronkite-Eight Poll released Tuesday.
Seventy-three percent of those polled said they oppose SB1214, sponsored by Sen. Karen Johnson, R-Mesa, which won endorsement Monday from a Senate committee in a 4-3 party-line vote. Twenty percent supported the idea and 7 percent were unsure.
The bill originally would have applied to all schools but was amended to cover only community colleges and state universities. That change occurred after the poll was conducted, but Bruce Merrill, a retired Arizona State University professor who directs the poll, said he doesn't think that change would have affected the results much.
"I doubt it would be a whole lot different because there has been pretty strong support against people having guns in schools," Merrill said.
The poll results come as law enforcement officials, including the police chiefs at the three state universities, raise concerns about the bill.
The Arizona Fraternal Order of Police and the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police have also expressed opposition.
Johnson didn't return a telephone message Tuesday. Her office said the senator wasn't going to comment.
Rick Dalton, a history teacher at Heritage Academy in Mesa who spent 20 years as a Mesa police officer, said the bill would enhance school safety, not hurt it, because individuals trained to carry concealed weapons could put an end to school shootings.
"It would allow people to defend themselves in the crucial minutes before the cops get there," Dalton said.
The poll, conducted Thursday through Sunday by ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and Eight-KAET-TV, involved 552 registered Arizona voters and has a sampling error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
The Cronkite School operates Cronkite News Service.
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