Face The State Staff Report
A gun rights student coalition is suing the University of Colorado over an on-campus firearms ban.
Perry Pendley, lead council for the plaintiffs and chief legal officer of Mountain States Legal Foundation, maintains that CU's ban on licensed concealed carrying of authorized weapons denies the right to self defense guaranteed by the Colorado Concealed Carry Act and the Colorado Constitution. CU has maintained a weapons ban since 1970, and in 2003, the ban was strengthened after former Attorney General and now U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar, a Democrat, issued a formal opinion that the CU ban eclipsed the Colorado Concealed Carry Act passed that year, legislation that allowed for licensed individuals to carry a concealed weapon in most other parts of the state.
The Colorado Conceal Carry Act does not apply to K-12 schools, anywhere with a Federal ban in place, facilities with metal detectors, and private property.
In August, Students For Concealed Carry on Campus petitioned the University of Colorado Board of Regents to take up the issue of concealed carry on campus. Jim Manley, another attorney for the plaintiffs and current state director for the group, maintains that his organization collected more than 400 signatures for the petition. At the time, Regent Kyle Hybl, R-Colorado Springs, told Face The State the issue is “too polarizing," and the Regents ultimately refused to reconsider the ban.
After having its petition rejected by the Regents, SCCC turned to the courts. “Students for Concealed Carry on Campus see a lawsuit as the only way to start a dialog about this issue,” said Manley. “Most of the Regents have declined to seriously consider the issue each and every time we brought it to their attention, so after many months of contemplation, Students for Conceal Carry turned to Mountain States Legal Foundation for help to bring a lawsuit.”
Regent-elect Jim Geddes, R-Sedalia, said he personally supports concealed carry on campus and pointed to Colorado State University, which does not have a written policy on carrying concealed handguns on campus, deferring instead to state law. While CSU does not allow weapons of any kind in its residence halls, individuals are allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus as long as they have a properly issued concealed weapons permit. “It has not caused any problems on the CSU campus,” he said.
David Kopel, a nationally recognized 2nd Amendment expert and research director at the Independence Institute, said the complaint against CU was well drafted and the plaintiffs will have a decent shot in district court. Still, he predicts that the case could end up getting appealed all the way to Colorado Supreme Court, where the prospects are more bleak. “Even when the legislature makes itself very clear, there are still three justices who are so anti-gun, they’ll try to see things the other way,” he said.
In light of recent legal trends around the country, however, Pendley remains optimistic about his clients’ prospects of winning. The Utah Supreme Court, for example, struck down a ban similar to CU’s in 2006, ruling that state law stripped public universities of any authority to regulate firearms, including licensed concealed carry. In Ohio, the state’s highest court struck down a local ban on licensed concealed carry in parks. The U.S. Supreme Court also lifted a controversial prohibition on all guns in Washington D.C. in June.