I'm taking on our state university's ban on carry on campus. We've held a protest and approached the Board of Regents and University President several times.
The University President just wrote the following Compass article (op-ed from the community) attempting to justify the gun ban, please read it first. I'm attaching my response, which I'm told by the local commie rag they intend to print shortly.
http://www.adn.com/2010/05/06/1267335/universitys-gun-restrictions-are.html My response:
As a lifelong Alaskan and UAA Justice Major I was distressed to read Pres. Hamilton’s Compass article regarding carry on campus. I expected him to directly address the legal and Constitutional issues involved rather than relying on evasion and poorly reasoned arguments.
The issue is simple. University policy forbids adult students and faculty from exercising their right to carry weapons on campus exactly as they currently do off campus, on pain of administrative sanction. The policy assumes that these adults, who are lawful carriers off campus, will become dangerous simply by entering University grounds. Regardless of Pres. Hamilton’s dismissal of the legal issues as “ridiculous”, Alaskans have a Constitutional right to bear arms that cannot be infringed by “… the state or a political subdivision of the state.” (Alaska Constitution, Art. 1, Sec.19). Further, state statute prevents its political subdivisions from introducing restrictions beyond those listed in statute (AS 29.35.145 and AS 11.61.190-220).
The University is a state public institution. The Regents are authorized to “…adopt reasonable rules, orders, and plans with reasonable penalties for the good government of the University and for the regulation of the Board” (AS 14.40.170 (b) (2)). Pres. Hamilton is claiming that the Board’s complete ban on lawful carry by adults on the public property of an entity of the State of Alaska is a “reasonable rule”; ignoring the fact that even the Municipalities in which the campuses are located cannot do so. The complete denial of a fundamental Constitutional right hardly seems “reasonable”.
I find it disingenuous for Pres. Hamilton to note that weapon storage is allowed in vehicles by policy. That doesn’t address actual carry on campus and is a change made only after the state Students for Concealed Carry on Campus representative recently pointed out that the University was in violation of another state statute (AS 18.65.800). You don’t get to crow about something you were forced to do.
The presence of a few prohibited locations does not rationally justify banning lawful carry on the entire campus. State law would continue to ban carry inside the premises, fenced playgrounds and immediately adjacent parking lots of the campus daycares. If the UAF pub is a “bar”, state law bans carry within its premises and already prohibits carry while drinking. The presence of K-12 age students simply does not make someplace a K-12 school. These arguments carried to their logical extreme would bar carry in public everywhere in the state, as daycares, pubs and students of K-12 age are present in or near all non-prohibited local stores, malls, restaurants, theatres, churches, libraries and public parks.
If the Board wants to have a policy that carry isn’t allowed into administrative hearings, they are likely free to do so. Similarly, if the Board is concerned about students who live in the dorms (a privilege, not a right) possessing weapons in their rooms or even students under the age of 21 carrying on campus, such limited, narrowly-tailored, restrictions would probably meet legal standards.
The University appears to be on shaky legal ground with its total ban on campus carry by law-abiding Alaskan adults. President Hamilton did not present sound arguments to distinguish the University from other public locations where carry is allowed. He and the Board also fail to address why many universities nationwide don’t have such bans yet are not “less safe” nor have a lesser “university experience”. If those adult students and faculty can responsibly carry on their campuses, on what basis do he and our Board feel adult Alaskan students and faculty cannot?
Finally, the University of Colorado is in the process of losing a lawsuit against its own ban with an almost identical set of facts; Colorado State University has already bowed to the inevitable and rescinded its campus ban rather than fight their own expensive losing case in state court. With UA costs and tuition rising should our University risk fighting an expensive legal battle of its own to defend a policy that could be easily and safely modified to bring it into line with Alaska law?
