Another month, another campus shooting.

Or so it seems, now that our state Legislature considered the issue of allowing firearms on college campuses in South Dakota.

Earlier this week, at least six people died at Northern Illinois University when a gunman opened fire in a classroom. Add that to a handful of other recent college shootings, plus the horrific loss of life at Virginia Tech last year, and the idea of letting students defend themselves against deranged gunmen by carrying weapons on campus seems to almost make sense.

Almost, but not quite.

While we sympathize with the desire for safety and security that Rep. Tom Brunner of Nisland and Sen. Dennis Schmidt of Rapid City, sponsors of HB1261, think they are providing for college students, we contend that HB1261 would make college campuses less safe, not more.

HB1261 takes aim at the S.D. Board of Regents policy that restricts firearms on college campuses. A committee killed that bill, and senators refused Friday to give it another hearing.

Many South Dakotans believe that the best response to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. But the idea that mentally ill people will be deterred from opening fire in a classroom because someone else there may have a weapon in their backpack is flawed. Crazy people don't think about consequences, nor do they make rational choices.

The hope that other students will stop any carnage with their own guns is also misplaced since this is real life, not Hollywood. The chaos and confusion of a crime scene will only increase as the number of guns in it multiply.

In dormitories, more guns will undoubtedly mean more gun- related accidents, more suicides and more senseless tragedies brought about by immaturity, lack of judgment, impulsivity, alcohol consumption or mental illness. But whatever their root cause, each of those incidents will only have been made possible by the proximity of guns.

College professors are understandably unhappy about the proposed change in campus rules, and rightly so. Teaching is tough enough without having to worry that the student in the front row forgot to put the safety on that handgun in her purse.

Many parents question the wisdom of sending their children to a college where firearms may be ubiquitous, and legislators should consider the negative impact such a change might have on enrollments.

HB1261 supporters see the Second Amendment's constitutional right to bear arms as a personal right that allows them to pack a pistol in any public place. We don't.

We aren't anti-gun rights, but there are places where legal restrictions on weapons serve the public interest.

We think college campuses are one of them.