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At a public forum last week on identifying distressed students , a UA professor asked the audience of about 50 people how many consider their campus workplace unsafe. About a quarter of the crowd of faculty, advisers, students raised their hands and indicated they don't feel safe at their jobs.

And it was clear that a state bill to allow people to carry weapons on college campuses only made the group scared. The bill is making its way through the Arizona Legislature. It should never become law.

The audience's response is understandable in a general sense — campus shootings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University are tragic reminders that no place is immune from violence.

But some in the group gathered at the University of Arizona student union clearly had more specific concerns. They wanted to know what to do if someone comes into their classroom with a gun, how quickly the Dean of Students Office deals with threats made to faculty members, and how to know if a student is making a real threat or blowing off steam.

Speakers asked about specific situations they'd faced. More than one mentioned instances when a student threatened to "Virginia Tech the place." Another spoke of a student who called a department asking for the dean's signature for some paperwork and threatened to commit suicide in front of the UA employee if it didn't happen ASAP. The employee called campus police.

Audience members had questions about who is notified when a threatening student has been suspended or expelled. One employee said she was alarmed to learn that her co-workers weren't told of a student who'd been expelled for making threats — so if that student had returned to campus no one would know anything was wrong.

Student privacy is protected by federal law. But if a student has threatened a UA student or employee and has been suspended or expelled, we believe the UA should alert the person's instructors and others who would know them — and need to know the student shouldn't be on campus. It's not a fail-safe solution, but it's better to err on the side of caution.

The UA knows too well that violence can happen anywhere. In 2002, a failing nursing student named Robert Flores walked into the College of Nursing and shot and killed three of his professors. It's a wound that can never totally heal because once the illusion of safety is shattered, it can't be rebuilt.

Veda Kowalski, the associate dean of students, said she often hears from students who've been reported as making threats that "I didn't intend to threaten the instructor." She said her office focuses on the student's behavior and explains that whether or not a student intended actual harm, what he or she said or did was threatening.

Threats at school, or anywhere else, must never be tolerated. Some things are never acceptable, even if they're done in frustration. One professor asked why campuses aren't more like the airport, where everyone knows if you make a threat about blowing up a plane, even in jest, it's taken seriously and law enforcement is called. It's a fair point. No one should have to live or go to school in a fearful environment.

Banning certain words won't keep us safe, but allowing students and employees to come to campus armed won't either.

Republican Sen. Karen Johnson of Mesa has sponsored legislation that would allow weapons onto public community college and university campuses. It passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 4-3 after she reluctantly removed a provision that would allow guns on K-12 campuses.

That this bill made it out of committee is ridiculous, although not surprising.

Johnson argues that allowing guns on campus will make schools safer because either deranged gunmen won't go to schools to kill people because they know victims could be armed or if a deranged person goes to campus and starts shooting, a student or employee can whip out a gun and kill the assailant.

Johnson and her supporters are wrong. Last month, a disgruntled resident of Kirkwood, Mo., went to the City Hall and killed six people, including two police officers who were armed. Violence isn't logical.

Many audience members at the UA were openly distressed at the thought that students could lawfully carry guns onto campus should this legislation pass.

It's impossible to entirely prevent people from doing harm. That's unnerving, but it's true.

But the UA must help its students and staff be prepared for an emergency that we all hope will never happen.