The Government of the Student Body will debate a bill tonight that, if passed, would call on Department of Public Safety officers to continue operating without sidearms.

The bill was written by senators David Ammann, Marcia Johnson and Yasmin Blackburn. A copy of the bill was sent to the state Board of Regents, DPS Director Loras Jaeger, ISU President Martin Jischke and the Iowa State Daily.

Blackburn said the ISU community would be in greater danger with armed law-enforcement officers.

“As a minority on this campus I think that they shouldn’t be given guns, because I already feel unsafe,” Blackburn said. “They already give minority students an unfair advantage, and I would feel totally unsafe if they were armed.”

Jaeger, who is in favor of arming DPS officers, disagrees. He said he was hired in 1990 to handle an unarmed agency, “but times have changed.”

There is no known formal proposal to arm DPS officers.

The state Board of Regents prohibits sidearms for each of the campus police forces at all three state universities. ISU has the only campus police force in the Big 12 Conference that does not allow sidearms.

Blackburn said DPS officials have not been hurt by armed persons, so there is no reason to arm campus officials on a relatively non-violent campus.

“I will leave Iowa State without my degree, and I graduate in May, if the DPS becomes armed,” Blackburn said.

The Ames Police Department assists DPS in cases involving firing weapons, Jaeger said.

“We have the caliber of officers now that we can extend the next level of service to students and that is the ultimate protection of service,” he said.

Although the campus has a low crime rate, he said, that’s not the only measure of safety.

Jaeger said because DPS does not carry guns, students have a perception that the officers aren’t actual police officers.

“We have to fight that because we are an unarmed agency,” he said.