At Weber State University, the frightening images of Columbine High School must have felt familiar for some students, faculty and staff.
The Colorado shooting had little impact on security at Weber State, because a violent shooting on the Ogden campus in 1993 had already prompted stiff safety measures.
Even today, Weber is the sole Utah public college that uses a metal detector. Campus officials order a portable walk-through magnometer — similar to those used in airport security — to be installed at all administrative hearings.
"It's been discussed at other campuses, but I don't know that anyone else has formally instituted the same safeguards that we have here at Weber State," said Richard Hill, university counsel, himself a victim in the 1993 shooting.
Armed student Mark Duong died and Hill, a campus police officer and another student were wounded in the incident.
No one could have anticipated that Duong would bring two guns into a grievance hearing and then open fire with one, apparently seeking to kill the husband of a woman who had charged him with sexual harassment.
State law does not prohibit concealed weapon permit holders — Duong was not one — from carrying a gun on campus.
That's a green light for concealed weapons, even though Utah's Board of Regents, the governing body that oversees the state's nine public colleges and universities, has held since 1996 that "campuses are not the appropriate places for weapons of any kind, concealed or unconcealed."
At the University of Utah, the state's flagship institution, both the alumni association and the academic senate have approved motions echoing the regent board's position.
"And frankly, (our weapon ban policy) is obviously a contradiction to state law that's not been tested in the courts," said Fred Esplin, the U.'s vice president for university relations.
Other campuses have steered clear of the issue, which they see as inherently ambiguous. Yet, ironically, Utah Valley State College is one of Utah County's 99 federally licensed firearm dealers, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
The college's purchasing agent maintains the license, which school officials say is needed to purchase parts to make and repair firearms in a gunsmithing class.
Val Petersen, UVSC associate vice president for college relations, said a safety committee has been meeting for six months to update the Orem school's emergency plans.
Issues range from evacuation plans in case of a fire and how to ward off violent intruders in classrooms or offices. A short brochure also has been developed to remind students and professors how to proceed in an emergency.
"Columbine has piqued people's interest in making sure the school is prepared," Petersen said.
"About a year ago, we talked about trying to pass some sort of policy limiting the use of weapons," said Jay Williams, spokesman for Salt Lake Community College. "But it would be a policy you couldn't enforce."
Campus police officers really have no way of knowing if a concealed weapon is carried onto campus.
"If the person brandishes that weapon," or even threatens to use it, said Williams, that itself is an arrestable offense.
But campus security officers obviously don't go looking for concealed weapons.
"It makes it an open question," said Hill, who says Weber administrators have done what they can to make students, faculty and staff feel safer.
"I've never felt particularly unsafe on campus," said Hill, despite the shooting. "But I know participants at hearings have felt safer, because they've told me that."
At Brigham Young University, Utah's largest private university, guns are not allowed on campus, said Carri Jenkins, school spokeswoman.
"Our policy is the same as the regents'," she said.
Deseret News staff writer Jeffrey P. Haney contributed to this report.