Lying to win
Via R. Neal, we learn of a site called Gun Free Kids which seeks to prohibit lawful concealed carry on campus. As these groups usually do, they frame the debate in terms of the evil gun lobby wanting to arm kids and that is patently false. The implication is that it’s the NRA (they say gun lobby and we know who that means) when the group advocating this is Students for Concealed Carry. NRA is pretty much mum on the issue these days.
The other false claim is that people seek to arm kids. Students for Concealed Carry is pushing for legislation to allow adults with concealed carry permits, who happen to be students, to carry on campus. They are not arming kids. But a little hysteria goes a long way.
Not a hot button issue for me. After all, like the various guns in cars bills, the issue is one of property rights. If a school chooses to prohibit carry on their property, well, it’s their property and they can do what they want.
February 13th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Gun Free Kids?
Since when have 18-year olds been kids? Oh right, since the drinking age thing.
February 13th, 2009 at 11:19 am
State funded schools are not private property.
February 13th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Looks like Andy Pelosi is the president. A relative of Nancy’s perhaps?
February 13th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Note the prominent featuring of the “Gun Guys” propaganda on their side bar.
Any bets as to whether this is just another Joyce Foundation funded, Freedom States Alliance affiliated shell group?
It’s a non-profit, there should be ways to get information about their funding and such…how do we do that?
February 13th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Gun Free Kids is another front group set up by some politicians and wealthy, mostly Democratic, donors from NYC and Long Island.
February 13th, 2009 at 11:54 am
What JR said.
In Texas, licensed individuals carrying concealed handguns CANNOT be banned from public property due to the fact that they are carrying. The exceptions are the usual courtrooms and jails/prisons, secure area of an airport, and federal property as well as the areas where fear-mongers whined and screamed loud enough for – professional sporting events (outright illegal), meetings of governmental entities (if properly posted), and of course schools.
The reasoning for not banning on government property is that the people are the owners of government property, and cannot have their rights curtailed by their own government. It’s interesting to see how so many other states have the opposite philosophy.
It’s interesting that the law will see any college-age individual as an adult, yet at the same time treat college students as children when it comes to licensed carry.
We have a movement gaining traction in Texas to make carry on college campuses legal, and to keep public colleges/universities from effectively banning carry with administrative rules. The issue at hand here is not related to private property rights. The laws in most states outright ban carry on college campuses, irrespective of any specific wishes of any property owner. If a private college wishes to ban carry, I have no problem with their decision. It is when the government blanketly legislates away the right of students (and faculty/staff) to be defend themselves that I have the issue.
The legislature made a very encouraging report studying the issue of campus carry over the interim period between last session and the current one. If can be found at http://www.house.state.tx.us/committees/reports/80interim/LawEnforcement80th.pdf. It’s encouraging reading. I fully expect a bill to see the light of day here in the Texas legislature and have a good chance of passing this session.
February 13th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Yea this is not a private property issue. If the gov is going to steal tens of thousands of dollars from parents, and then open a subsidized college, it’s a public area just like the streets or anywhere else. In Oregon a Marine ‘student adjudicated’ on the WOU campus but he broke no laws, and the schools rules fall under the state’s preemption clause so they are in the wrong. Major lawsuit currently in the works.
February 13th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Public School property doesn’t belong to the school, principal, city, school district, school administration or any public entity. It belongs to the citizens. Any citizen. Of your America. Maybe even the illegals have a claim. Not private.
February 13th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
To my eternal shame, Rowan University is listed as supporting this measure 🙁
That sucks for me. Graduated in 2006.
February 13th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
The difference between private and public universities can be seen in Utah, where Utah law requires public universities (University of Utah, Utah State, Weber State) to allow concealed carry on their campuses (campii?).
However Brigham Young University and Westminster College, both being private schools, can and do prohibit concealed carry on their property.
February 13th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Excellent point, Holly. A private school (as private property) may do as they please, but public and taxpayer-funded land is the question here. It just so happens that a university is sitting on that land.
February 13th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Setting aside the ‘kids’ versus ‘students’ issue for a moment – how about us employees who work on campus?
I’m not a kid, I’m not taking classes, and I’m a state employee. This is an entirely open campus and very few buildings have any form of security.
Why should my personal safety be denied just because of an invisible line between the sidewalk 100′ feet away?
I think it is illegal for a public University to ban CCW holders on their property like this – regardless of the person’s enrollment status.
February 13th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Captain Holly–do BYU or WC accept any public funds? If so, they can’t be considered private.
That said, if any totally “private” school doesn’t allow concealed carry, that school better be prepared for lawsuits when someone “comes a shooting.”
February 13th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Mark me down as another Texas State employee with a CHL who hopes the law changes very soon. I usually walk to work, and I feel pretty vulnerable having to do so unarmed (I carry outside of work hours everywhere it is legal to do so).
It makes my blood boil when our campus police force presents us this video on how to deal with an active shooter, and the film correctly states that most incidents will be over long before police arrive
But when questioned face-to-face, our campus police chief says he supports the CHL ban because they’d be afraid of arriving on scene and not knowing good guys from bad guys. (never mind the video THEY JUST SHOWED US says that’s very unlikely to happen. Also, all they’d have to do is command everyone to “Drop their weapon”. Those that comply are probably good guys, those that keep shooting are the perps, most likely)
On the other hand, they’re rather at the mercy of the University President & Administration for keeping their jobs, so probably aren’t really at liberty to give their actual opinions as law enforcement professionals and are forced to parrot the PC propaganda instead (at least I hope this is the case).
February 13th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
“Since when have 18-year olds been kids?”
Uh, getting a concealed carry permit requires you be at least 21, which is also how old you must be to legally buy a handgun.
If we’re talking a state university, I’m for targeting individuals in the administration for destruction until the rest of them get the picture. Our enemies have set that as precedent, and we should use it for all it’s worth.
February 13th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
“…the evil gun lobby wanting to arm kids…”
Markie Marxist sez: “We Marxists always like to claim that evil capitalist gun companies are looking for evil new ways to increase their evil profits by marketing evil guns to innocent children.”
“(Geez! Got a little carried away with the “evil” there. I’m starting to sound as redundant as those dingbats at the Batty Center. Everything with them is dangerous, dangerous and dangerous. I swear, we Marxists are losing them in the first purge! Jim Brady was the one who got shot in the head, but it’s his cockamamie wife who has half a brain! And don’t get me started on that former Republican slimeball turned communist slimeball, Helmke! That guy even gives ME the creeps, and I’m a certifiable, America-hating communist!)”
“Anyway, the public doesn’t buy it, but it energizes our communist base of true believers, who’ll believe that anything is true about capitalists as long as it’s bad – look how far gone into oogedy-boogedy land they are on our global warming ruse. We could have them staving off global warming by lining up on a beach at sunset to chant the praises of Gaia! Theyre kooks! Still, it has some usefulness to us that way, so we go through the motions, even though it’s just preaching to the choir, since they’re the only ones credulous enough to believe such crap. We’re going to lose those idiots in the first purge too.”
February 14th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Sure, private property owners have a right to prohibit concealed carry on their property. But inasmuch as by so doing they have made sure that persons visiting their property can’t protect themselves, said private property owners should also be held strictly liable for any failures to protect their visitors from…oh, I don’t know…mass shooters and other malcontents.
Won’t let me protect myself? OK, pay lots of money to have armed private security to protect me. Otherwise, pay my heirs about $10 million if I get killed because of your business decisions. Your choice, smart guy.
February 14th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
So a basic civil right can be eliminated on private property at the property owner’s whim? Why then can’t plantation owners keep slaves? Is the claim here that the 13th Amendment applies despite this “private property” thing, but the 2nd Amendment doesn’t?
February 14th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
The founder is a Pelosi. Related to our house speaker?
February 14th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
BYU accepts tuition that has been paid for out of grants and loans; otherwise it assiduously avoids accepting public money in any general way. Individual departments may occasionally be involved in programs funded by the federal government, but to my knowledge, the university is careful about mixing those funds with the general operation.
(Lest you think I am a BYU apologist, I am not. I attended there, but did not graduate, in the mid-80s when it was relatively moderate politically and much more lax religiously. The place creeps me out now.)
February 14th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Private property? I’m afraid not. Indeed, on truly private property, such as one’s home, one may make any rule they prefer, even excluding anyone they like from the property, thereby making moot any issue of carrying a firearm. However, on public property, such as schools, the public rules, and the courts have long accepted the ability of the government to make reasonable and necessary regulations dealing with a wide variety of issues. In a privately owned business which is open to the public, the same issues apply. Were this not so, any business owner could discriminate on the grounds of race or sex (and many other criteria), disregarding well established constitutional rights.
As the right to keep and bear arms has been unambiguously established as an enumerated individual right, it is inherently unreasonable to strip citizens of that–or any other–right as the price of entering a business open to the public at large. Indeed, it is just as unreasonable for businesses to deny their employees the right to carry firearms, particularly when such arms are merely locked in their vehicles in a parking lot. Yes, these are private businesses, but citizens cannot be stripped of their rights merely to be employed. After all, private businesses must hire from the public at large. And while some courts might find reasonable a prohibition of carrying weapons within the workplace, there is no justification for banning weapons from one’s vehicle–the private property of the employee merely because it occupies space in a company parking lot for 40 hours a week.
But when we’re talking publicly established and funded institutions, the law and common sense are clear: The people may not be stripped of their rights, and the right to keep and bear arms is not an implied right, but one of the enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights.
February 14th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
>>its their property and they can do what they want.
That’s a bit of libertarian dogma that isn’t quite so black and white upon closer examination.
Property comes in several degrees, ranging from truly “private”, as in one’s dwelling or other such place as one chooses to exclude others, to public, as in the sidewalk or parks.
In between, there’s some shades of distinction, typically falling into about 3 different categories of property of varying degrees of public accommodation.
People’s individual rights travel with them, wherever they are, subject to a certain amount of give and take with the property owner’s rights, that give and take being guided by those degrees of public accommodation.
Even in your own home, you’re still not allowed to capture and take slaves.
February 14th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Whatever the hair-splitting on BYU and Westminster’s status as a public or private institution, the state legislature allowed private — ie, non-state funded — institutions to set their own firearms policy.
Considering Utah is one of the few states to allow permitted concealed carry in both public schools and universities I’d say it was a decent compromise.
Oh, and Joe, BYU has always had the Honor Code, and has always been overwhelmingly Republican. I think you’re just having a bit of culture shock after all these years. 😉
February 15th, 2009 at 12:50 am
While all of you are debating the merit of on-campus carry, we in the state of Illinoisistan don’t have concealed carry anywhere. I completely agree that providing gun-free zones only empower the criminals. So do gun free government meetings 😉
February 15th, 2009 at 1:06 am
My rule is that unless they have metal detectors no one will know I’m carrying unless I really need the gun. At which point the judged by 12 rule is in effect.
February 15th, 2009 at 4:11 am
Lyle, you’re right about the concealed carry permit and handgun age requirement, but that doesn’t make 18-year olds any less adult. Of course, the way some things in the culture seem to be going, ages 18 to 21 is a time to act like you’re still 10.
bc, I’m right there with you. Let’s hope this latest attempt by Gary Forby will bear fruit.
February 15th, 2009 at 8:57 am
“Even in your own home, youre still not allowed to capture and take slaves.”
The argument is veering from the subject but I’ve got to respond.
No one is contending that rights are suspended on private property…however, it is not an individual right for anyone to be present on any private property or use that property for any purpose to which the property owner does not agree.
That’s not the individual’s right, that’s the property owners right.
So, when someone is present on the property and, for whatever reason…whether it’s because that someone is wearing baggy pants, is carrying a gun, or is making speeches about liberty…the property owner has every right to disinvite them from the property. If said someone refuses to leave, they are trespassing. Period.
That has nothing to do with the individual’s rights, it only pertains to the property owner’s rights.
With one caveat: geekwitha45 is right in that there are differences between strictly private property and business property that provides public accommodations.
Some of the distinctions there have yet to be decided in court, but the difference is already legally recognized.
February 15th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Exactly. As a business owner, just try and institute a policy that all female employees must perform a sex act on managers, and must work naked, or start a “whites only” lunch counter and see where your “property rights” get you.
February 15th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Lets not look at it from a property rights viewpoint, but look at it from an end state viewpoint. Which is a better society?
1. The one where guns are verboten on various properties, this inconvenience getting in the way of normal usage rather like having pockets of zero oxygen in an oxygen environment would interfere with normal walking around of humans?
2. The one where most people carry everywhere, except say in a court of law or a prison.
I say #2 is a better society. It would yield better results. You can make up arguements to get there as you need.
February 15th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
My Daughter (21) isn’t allowed to carry a gun on campus, despite the fact that she takes classes which finish very late at night, and the parking lots are almost deserted when she leaves the building. (They are fairly well-lit, but that’s about it.)
Campus security patrols the lots, but not consistently — and the patrols are certainly absent for lengthy periods of time.
Interestingly enough, a university campus parking lot is almost the only place in the state of Texas where young people are so much at risk.
One day, there is going to be a massive tragedy in this scenario. I just hope it doesn’t happen to my daughter, because if it does, other people are going to die.
Most probably at my hand.