The National Rifle Association and its supplicants in legislatures around the country and the U.S. Congress have a ready and facile answer for the problem of gun violence in the United States:

More guns.

If only the students inside that Oregon community college were armed when a student killed nine and injured nine others Oct. 1. If only teachers in the nation's high schools carried guns. If only carrying firearms was legal everywhere.

But it's a fantasy the firearms industry has inflated in the minds of supporters.

And it's fantastical to think that lightly trained citizens packing guns will either prevent or alter the path of a determined shooter. The greater risk is that more arms means more shootings and more deaths. And that's why a bill to allow guns inside university buildings is such a bad idea.

Since 2011, concealed weapons have been legal on the grounds of public colleges and universities but schools can ban weapons inside the buildings. Rep. Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum) and Sen. Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) want to repeal the University of Wisconsin System's ban. It's a response, Kremer claims, to violence near the UW-Milwaukee campus.

"Crime is on the rise around the campus, and there is nothing stopping them because these students walking to campus are disarmed," Kremer said. "This will allow students the right to protect themselves."

But Tom Luljak, a UWM spokesman, said he wasn't aware of Kremer even speaking to anyone in the campus administration. And Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee), whose legislative district includes the UWM campus, said the proposal was based on the "lie" that shooters target gun-free zones when, in reality, most attacks involve a personal connection.

Larson called the proposal "absolutely ridiculous." We agree.

Especially when one considers what it means to allow guns inside residence halls — or at Camp Randall Stadium on a football Saturday. "Allowing concealed weapons inside a building like Camp Randall Stadium, filled with 80,000 people, creates a major security issue," the University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department said in one of the year's biggest understatements.

Better approaches: Reinstating a waiting period and requiring background checks for all firearm purchases.

Or, as several Democrats are suggesting in a new bill of their own, reinstituting a ban of weapons on campus.

The state's concealed carry law was flawed when it passed in 2011. Guns never should have been allowed on campuses in the first place.

But despite those problems, the least lawmakers can do now is allow the ban on guns inside buildings at universities to stand.

The knee-jerk response favored by the gun radicals — ever more guns — doesn't solve problems. It creates them.

REPRINTED FROM THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL