Since the April 16 shootings that left 33 people dead, including the gunman, at Virginia Tech, some have suggested that the carnage might have been lower if a student or professor with a gun had stepped in.

''I don't think that is the answer quite frankly,'' said Gonzales, who was participating in a governor's task force to study safety and security on Oklahoma college campuses.

Instead, authorities should enforce existing laws concerning the ownership and use of handguns, he said.

''We can't guarantee complete security,'' Gonzales said. ''We need to see what we can do as a government - on the federal level, on the state level - to ensure the safety of our students.''

He said the government also needs to work closely to make campuses safe while still respecting individual freedoms and privacy.

''In a society where we really value individual freedom and respect privacy, we're also concerned about public safety,'' Gonzales said.

Guns are allowed on Utah college campuses if their carriers have valid concealed weapons permits, and Utahns who support the state's controversial concealed weapons law have argued an incident like that at Virginia Tech may be less likely to occur in Utah as a result.

"In these multiple-victim shootings, when you deny the ability of lawful self-defense, there's no return fire until the police show up, and that's when people die," Clark Aposhian, chairman of the Utah Self-Defense Instructors Network, said in an earlier interview.

The task force on which Gonzales is participating included discussions among law enforcement, mental-health and higher-education officials. It focused on getting and sharing information about possible campus risks and how to respond to a campus attack.

''Is there additional information that we need with respect to individuals who may pose a threat to society?'' Gonzales said.

In response to the shootings, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine signed an executive order requiring that anyone ordered by a court to get mental health treatment be added to a state police database of people barred from buying guns.