Long before Christopher Darnell Jones Jr. was charged with murder, the university had received a report that he had a gun in his room on campus. That was a violation of school rules, but state Delegate Katrina Callsen says it wasn’t a crime.
“Because it’s not criminally illegal, they don’t really have any remedies or investigative powers," Callsen explains. "It is just really hard to enforce that if you can’t involve law enforcement.”
She and Senator Creigh Deeds sponsored a bill to change that, but it was vetoed by Governor Youngkin. In the next legislative session, they’ll try a different approach.
“In his veto statement he said that it didn’t take into account the diverse needs of our college campuses," Callsen says, "So this version makes it an opt in restriction.”
In other words, schools could decide if they wanted gun possession to be illegal on campus. Meanwhile, UVA is taking an academic approach to the problem with a community safety working group, a new program and a spring semester course aimed at better understanding gun violence and possible solutions.
Earlier in the day students observed a moment of silence followed by chapel bells playing Amazing Grace. Here's Sandy Hausman's report on that memorial.
