This is an unfortunate product of a coddling culture. There is no reason why college students, or for that matter high school students, shouldn't be treated as adults. People have created this idea that people under twenty-five or thirty or forty aren't trust worthy and then made it true by not trusting them. You can't drink until you're 21, can't rent a car until you're 25. Students on college campuses are forbidden from possessing or carrying anything that can be considered a weapon. The dormitories here even put nerf guns on the list of banned weapons that should be stored in the police station. Colleges are not here to train people to have self-control, thats what parents are for. Colleges are institutes of higher, more specific learning. Yes, you also learn what it is to live on your own outside your parents influence (generally), but I am not spending ten thousand dollars a semester for my RA to teach me to do my own laundry. I'm paying ten thousand dollars a semester to learn about geology, so I can get a job which will pay me more then minimum wage because I've spent the time learning skills that not everyone possesses.

Try treating people as adults and you will find they act as adults. A person is considered to be an adult in the United States at 18 but is not granted all of the rights and privileges of being an adult until many years later. But we do expect them to pay taxes and sign up for selective services. We even allow them to join the military at 17 so they can be given an M-16 or an M9 and sent over to kill our countries enemies in a foreign land, but they can't own a handgun or drink until they are 21.

While I don't suggest that everyone should be armed. I think its appropriate for suitably trustworthy (as determined by a background check) and suitably trained people be allowed to conceal carry their weapons. A well trained and armed citizen could very well have made a decisive difference in this and similar situations.