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My ONLY hesitation in wholeheartedly agreeing with you comes from the fact that I teach seniors in high school. None of them are near enough mature for me to even give them firearms training, let alone touch a real weapon.

OTOH, I myself had a CCW permit at U of Alabama in the 1970s. We weren't very serious either during those times, except when we contemplated our imminent military commissions and when we were armed. Then it was 100% business.

A nice compromise would be to allow returning combat veterans who are attending school to go armed, perhaps even offer tuition breaks for doing so.

Secondarily, I'd offer firearms classes as a semester or summer course to prep the rest of campus. Contract with local NRA Instructors (like me) to teach and find a local range/gunshop to work with for live fires and perhaps rentals of weapons. Good advertising and a huge potential source of eventual revenue. That should also go a long way to relieving concern of other students, faculty and administration. Of course it will only cause the media to really rip their hair out and drive the anti-groups nutz as well.

Just an aside, I think it would be a good idea to commission teachers as reserve police officers, if they were willing to do so.

Send them to the academy, give them some tactical insurv sessions, and let them loose.

My ONLY hesitation in wholeheartedly agreeing with you comes from the fact that I teach seniors in high school. None of them are near enough mature for me to even give them firearms training, let alone touch a real weapon.

I have pictures in my high school yearbook of students with guns in school. It was the hunting club. Nobody thought anything of it. They were sophomores, juniors and seniors (only a 3 year school). We were all taught gun safety from the times our parents allowed us to touch a gun. Are these kids mentally inferior to my generation? Or are they just not taught the importance of life and common sense (among other things)?

My high school's JROTC program had me receiving firearms training and marksmanship in my HS sophmore year

The debate on allowing CCW on campus is not about allowing 18 year old freshmen to carry. In just about every state, you have to be 21 to get a license, which leaves out most undergrads

If you allow CCW on campus, it will be limited to professors, grad students, and administrative staff. The talk about allowing undergrad students to carry is just to poison the debate

I was at the University from ‘79 to 82. Did’t have a permit but carried a Hi Power fairly often. Also generally kept a shotgun or rifle in my truck depending on if it was deer or turkey season.
I was taught to handle firearms from the time I was 7 yo and taught about gun safety from the time I was born. When I was in high school my friends and I usually kept a rifle or shotgun in our vehicles so we could go hunting for an hour or so after school. Maybe kids have changed but using and understanding firearms is not rocket science and all kids should be trained in their safe use.
It’s maybe only a coincidence but I don’t recall there being many school shootings back then. Of course, we didn’t advertise that our school was a “Gun Free Zone”. What idiocy. As a matter of fact our principle was an ex county cop and we all assumed he had access to a weapon. I know for a fact that several teachers did.