Public safety departments at two more New York state community colleges are now approved to have rifles on campus. The authorization came just this week for Dutchess Community College and Monroe Community College.

Peace officers at Monroe Community College’s Department of Public Safety already carry pistols. Now they will have access to rifles.

“Capacity [and distance] certainly play a big part in it. A rifle is accurate for hundreds of yards. A pistol’s accurate for 20-30 yards on a good day. You look at some of our long hallways, you look at some of our large open spaces and it’s a tool for a specific situation," said Chief of the public safety department at Monroe Community College, Stephen Wise, referring to a potential active shooter situation.

The rifle discussion has been on the table for some time – with open forums, student talks, the county legislature and others. 

“I’m involved with a group of community college public safety administrators where we work across the state to work on things that more of what the other colleges are doing, and this is a topic that we’re all discussing," said Wise.

The discussions have been triggered by the increase in mass shootings in recent years.

“If we had the unlikely unfortunate event that there was an active shooter here on campus, we would be calling 911 [and] we would be looking for help from our neighboring law enforcement agencies,” said Wise. “But if we then ask them to go to building 6, room 230, I think that’s where people are going to start getting lost and you’re losing time. So for our peace officers, that response time drops significantly when we can respond to a threat with proper tools.”

MCC’s security team includes security guards and peace officers. 

“Our peace officers are going to be the ones that are going to be allowed to have access to the rifles,” said Wise. “Those peace officers go to the exact same police academy that your Monroe County sheriffs do, your city of Rochester police officers do [and] your town of Brighton police officers do. We have the same training and certification that they do, and while we’re here on campus, we have the same authority that they do.”

Wise said students, faculty and others won’t notice anything different, as the rifles will be out of sight.

"We’ve done a lot of work as far as working with the Sheriff’s Department and the town of Brighton as far as the protocols that they use and how they carry the rifles and we’re going to use it in a similar fashion,” said Wise. “We don’t really want to get into exactly how we’re going to do it. It’s just another law enforcement tool that’s really become accepted in the law enforcement community.”