Springing into Action to Keep Guns Off Campus – 2026 Spring Newsletter

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: SPRING 2026 NEWSLETTER

Hope Springs Eternal Out of a Turbulent Winter

Dear friends of The Campaign:

It has been all that could be expected across the choppy federal and statewide political landscape this past season. It is of little surprise that the chill was felt as doors swung open to rapidly and recklessly introduce far-reaching measures, many aimed at solidifying the power base of the gun lobby and its policymaking messengers, from the statehouses to Capitol Hill. Our colleges and universities were on the front lines at high tide in more ways than one, including several efforts to repeal gun-free zones and radically impose campus-carry rights. Additionally, we are witnessing a plethora of insidious designs to embed Second Amendment-focused curriculum and firearm-handling instruction into public schools. All of this and more brought The Campaign into coalitions and directly onto campuses to stem the tide. We were also heartened to be occasionally on offense, witnessing states such as Virginia pass sweeping gun-reform packages and Minnesota introduce legislation penned by students. Additionally, Florida and New Hampshire ramped up united and noble efforts with coalition-building infrastructure, networks of college and university leadership, student and faculty advocates, and a broad cross-section of nonprofit organizations well-poised to mobilize for vitally important actions to come. The Campaign is immensely proud to be officially aligned with GunSense NH and the Florida Action Alliance, and we thank the numerous university stakeholders, community organizations, and law enforcement authorities who have generously joined the multilayered cause to keep guns off campus.

In this newsletter, take note of the wide range of bills that have caught The Campaign’s attention, required our physical presence, and demanded direct action. It continues to be an honor to be on the ground, in the capitals and on the campuses where these mounting policies have their most profound effects. Absorb the evolving Armed with Knowledge toolkit and embrace the wisdom of the nation’s founders, for whom patriotism and gun-free campuses were never separate mindsets. Be inspired by campus champions in our midst, too. All across America, there are intelligent, tireless voices teaching and professing that the pursuit of happiness knows no single season, and that the sunshine of optimism can propel us out of the darkest of days. It was a cold winter on many fronts—yet today we spring forward, resolved to rise again—defending the time-honored freedom to live in tranquility, leverage real liberty, and learn in true peace.

With Gratitude,
John McKenna, Executive Director

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

2026 Current Legislative Actions (note in Florida and New Hampshire, The Campaign is
aligned with several organizations within the Florida Action Alliance and New Hampshire GVP Coalition, respectively)  TAKE ACTION with the NH SENATE TODAY!

A few members of the New Hampshire Team, (l-r) Zandra Rice Hawkins (GunSense NH), Nancy Brown (Guns to Gardens), John McKenna (KGOC), Kathleen Slover and Sarah Gentile (NH Moms Demand Action)

PROGRESS ON KEY INITIATIVES

Illinois

HB 3320 (RIFL Act – multiple sponsors) – supporting the bill, which creates the

Responsibility in Firearm Legislation (RIFL) Act. The bill establishes a firearms manufacturer

licensing program in the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, with certain requirements, including that the sum of all fees for firearms manufacturer licenses shall be

equal to the public health costs and financial burdens from firearm injuries and deaths.

SD Victory!
HB 1133 was killed in the House Education Committee on a 9-6 vote. It would have removed enhanced permit rules for concealed carry on SD college campuses, a provision in SB 100 passed last year. Student governments at both SD State University and the University of South Dakota opposed the measure.

Virginia Victory! The state passed multiple gun-reform bills in Governor Abigail Spanberger’s new term, a slate that includes an assault-weapons ban and making it a crime to leave a gun visible in a vehicle, a measure that could have prevented the shooting at Old Dominion University. Also advanced was SB 272 (Sen. Deeds, D-Charlottesville), limiting where firearms may be carried in buildings owned or leased by the commonwealth, including public colleges and universities.

Minnesota
HF 3401 (Greene) – supporting bill mandating secure storage of firearms on school property, which a group of six students helped write.

FEDERAL UPDATES

SAVE America Act – opposing HR 7296 – Chip Roy (R-TX), a bill requiring individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, and requires photo identification to vote, in federal elections.

S 65 (John Cornyn – TX) and HR 38 (Richard Hudson – NC) – opposing the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act which overrides strong state gun laws while imposing theweakest national standard across all 50 states.

KEEP GUN CURRICULUM OFF CAMPUS, TOO!

Several gun-rights efforts have been mobilized to embed, if not institutionalize, firearm ownership and gun-handling instruction on campuses across the nation. The University of Wyoming, fueled by a one-million-dollar Department of Education grant, has opened a narrative-focused Firearms Research Center that includes an initiative equipping secondary school educators with what it has described as “historically grounded, nonpartisan resources on the Second Amendment’s history, legal interpretation, and application.” Several states have enacted mandated public-school instruction on the knowledge and handling of firearms as well. In this K–12 school year, a firearms curriculum is mandated in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Utah for children as young as five years old in kindergarten. Arkansas and Tennessee do not provide a parental “opt-out” provision. Two states, New Hampshire and Arizona, have recently introduced similar bills. The Campaign is fundamentally opposed to public institutions being used to pay the cost and serve as incubators for the promotion and handling of lethal weaponry.

ARMED WITH KNOWLEDGE: A Campus Safety Toolkit

A KGOC initiative-in-progress, the toolkit is a timely resource for college students, faculty, staff and visitors, as well as student applicants, in states impacted by legislation fundamentally altering the environment of campuses; resources include copies of Dominic Erdozain’s groundbreaking analysis, One Nation Under Guns and GVPedia Founder Devin Hughes’ The Myths We Carry: An Advocate’s Guide to the Gun Debate; offered are sample questions to be posed and language to be considered for college admissions offices and media departments to utilize and customize, plus template website postings and sample audio/visual content.

BORN GUN FREE: Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the American Revolution

Forbidding firearms on America’s world-class institutions of higher learning dates back hundreds of years, before ratification of the Constitution.

Yale University

Founded: New Haven, CT, 1701 – Yale is the third oldest university in the United States. It was originally chartered by the colonial legislature of Connecticut as the Collegiate School and was held at Killingworth and other locations. In 1716 the school was moved to New Haven.

Guns on Campus Policy: A century after Harvard College’s foundation, which banned students from having “a gun in his or their chambers or studies,” in 1745 Yale prohibited students from possessing or firing “a Gun or Pistol” “in the College-Yard or College.”

Today, Yale remains committed to public safety in the restriction of firearms on campus: “The

University specifically prohibits the possession of weapons by any faculty or staff member, student, or visitor while on or in the vicinity of University-owned or controlled property, whether or not the owner is licensed to carry such weapon. This ban includes keeping a weapon or transporting it to another location.”

Sample achievements: Yale developed the first planned college map (Brick Row) in 1792. Four Yale graduates signed the Declaration of Independence and several U.S. Presidents hold Yale degrees.

Mascot: Handsome Dan, a bulldog, has been the school’s mascot since 1890.

Notable Alumni: writers Tom Wolfe and William F. Buckley Jr., inventor Eli Whitney, actress Meryl Streep and actor Paul Newman, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.

RECOMMENDED READS

A highly useful compendium is the pocket-sized book, The Myths We

Carry – An Advocate’s Guide to the Gun Debate by GVPedia Founder Devin Hughes, a concise tool in understanding and navigating through the nation’s gun-rights debate. The Campaign is proud to be in partnership with the author and GVPedia in making this deeply researched guide an effective resource within the Armed with Knowledge campus toolkit.

Moving Pictures

Not-to-be-missed is the recent Academy Award-winning documentary All the Empty Rooms. Filmmaker Joshua Seftel sets on a seven-year journey following CBS News veteran Steve Hartman visiting the homes of people directly traumatized by campus gun violence.

CAMPUS CHAMPS

Tania Tetlow, JD, has served as the 33rd president of Fordham University since July 2022, when she became the first layperson and first woman to hold the office since Fordham’s founding in 1841.

Tetlow is a legal scholar and former assistant U.S. attorney and serves as vice chair of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

Tetlow graduated cum laude from Tulane University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in American studies, and she is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where she earned a Juris Doctor degree and was a Harry S. Truman Fellow.

Born in New York, she grew up in New Orleans, the daughter of Fordham alumni (her parents met in graduate school at Rose Hill). Her late father was an educator, clinical psychologist, and former Jesuit priest who earned his Ph.D. at Fordham. Her mother, a biblical scholar and author, earned two of her five master’s degrees—in philosophy and theology—from Fordham.

President Tetlow has advanced Fordham’s rich history in improving gun safety, including states’ rights and the legalities of limiting an individual from carrying guns in public. She has encouraged students to protest against gun violence, saying, “Students will face no student conduct sanctions for peaceful and respectful demonstrations against gun violence on or off campus.” The Princeton Review ranks Fordham University as the nation’s 18th in most politically active students.

Jens Ludwig, PhD, has been studying gun violence for 30 years as both a researcher and a practitioner, and is the author of the recently published Unforgiven Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence. He founded the University of Chicago Crime Lab as a place where ideas—often sourced from neighborhood groups—could be tested with a rigor that is usually reserved for medical science. It has become a wellspring of important ideas to reduce gun violence. In the area of education, he has written extensively about early childhood interventions and the role of social conditions in shaping children’s schooling outcomes.

Ludwig received his PhD in Economics from Duke University. In 2006, he was awarded APPAM’s David N. Kershaw Prize for Contributions to Public Policy by Age 40. He has served on the review boards of J-PAL’s Behavioral Science and Crime Program and J-PAL North America’s Social Policy Research Initiative.

“The main problem with guns in America is that they make violent crime deadlier: gun violence equals guns plus violence,” Ludwig said. “Now, we have gold-standard evidence—randomized trials—showing prevention works. My hope is that people across the political spectrum, who can all see that prevention is clearly the first-best way to deal with this terrible problem, can get on board with this agenda once they’re really convinced that gun violence is more preventable than we’ve long thought. From there, we can really change things.”

The Campaign on the Calendar: look for us at upcoming events!

June 4-6: NetRoots Nation, Philadelphia

June 11-12: AAPI-GVP Conference, Washington, DC