#StuckOnStupid: Concealed carry permit segregation at some Colorado universities
Are you kidding me?
The University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs are amending their student housing contracts, segregating students who possess a valid concealed-weapons carry permit.
The university said Thursday that both campuses will establish a residential area for students over the age of 21 with permits. In all other dormitories, guns will be banned, the new policy states.
“The main dorms on the main campus will not allow any concealed-carry weapons,” CU-Boulder spokesman Bronson Hilliard said.
In addition, attendees at ticketed athletic and cultural events, such as football games and theater, on both campuses will not be permitted to bring their guns, officials said.
“We are treating that ticket purchase as a contractual agreement that you won’t bring your weapon to the venue,” Hilliard said.
Less than 1 percent of the student-body population of each campus is believed to have a concealed-carry permit, school officials said.
The university has been working on the policy since March, when the Colorado Supreme Court upheld an appeals-court ruling that struck down CU’s gun ban. The court said the Board of Regents overstepped its authority by refusing to allow permitted concealed weapons on campuses, in leased buildings and in any area under the control of university police, officials said.
The Mountain States Legal Foundation is reviewing the CU change:
The new rules announced Thursday are troubling to James Manley, the attorney from the Mountain States Legal Foundation, who represented the student gun-rights group that brought the original lawsuit against CU’s gun ban.
“We’re going to take a hard look at the language, and if it conflicts with the concealed-carry act ruling of the Supreme Court, all options are open to us, including continuing the litigation that CU lost in March,” Manley said.
State law allows for those who are 21 or older, and who possess a concealed-carry permit, to carry a gun on campus.
Deb Coffin, vice chancellor for student affairs, met with student veterans, undergraduates, graduates and the CU Parents Association before developing the new contract agreement for university housing.
There are a dozen university-owned, standalone family housing cottages that will allow for students with concealed weapons permits to keep guns in their residences. Additionally, there are a limited number of units in Athens North, a family housing unit, that will allow for students with permits to bring their guns.
Students in these family housing units must sign contracts stating that they will lock their guns in safes when they leave their cottages or apartments, Coffin said.
“Our primary concern is the safety of our student residents,” Coffin said.
What utter crap! Basically what this is saying is that no one who legally owns a firearm can be trusted – and why? Because of isolated instances where people who purchased firearms legally carried out attacks with tragic consequences? Guess what? Most people who own guns legally do NOT commit crimes of any sort and only purchase the firearms either for hunting purposes and/or to protect themselves and their property from people who have a complete disregard for the law. Don’t believe the agenda-driven scare tactics of the mainstream media and gun control zealots. The vast majority of people who own firearms are the most responsible people you will ever come across when it comes to knowing how to use one and when to use one.
Consider the policy change and why CU enacted it: In a nutshell, they think gunowners are a danger to society because a tiny minority of them have chosen to use their weapons to hurt and kill innocent people, as was the case in Aurora. So in response, they want to “segregate” law abiding citizens who legally own a firearm away from other students, for the “protection” of the students who are not gun owners. Guess what? In terms of the actual crime rate, a disproportionate number of crimes are committed nationwide by young black men. Would CU respond accordingly, then, by segregating the white students from the black students in order to “protect” white students? Of course not. Not only is it against the law, but it would unfairly stigmatize all black people. So why do they think it’s ok to do the same thing as it relates to law-abiding gun owners on their campus who haven’t done anything at all to deserve a similar stigmatization?
Not only that, but do we really need to revisit the fact that the theater where the Aurora tragedy took place did NOT allow anyone to carry a gun inside the building, their version of “gun control”? How did that work out for them? Also, Washington, DC is the gun control capital of America but it did not keep one nut from trying to exact political “revenge” at FRC this past week.
This type of stuff is infuriating to me and I don’t even own a gun nor do I plan to. I can only imagine how infuriated CCW holders feel when they read stuff like this.