Via a recent court decision, Colorado has become a bit safer for college students. Here's part of an editorial in The Gazette addressing the issue.
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[All following emphasis mine.]
The dangerous new gun ban at Colorado State University is gone, thanks to a wise decision by the university’s board of governor’s Wednesday to rescind it.
Gun bans remain at most other campuses in Colorado for now, including the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa said he will undermine the UCCS gun ban until it goes away.
“Nobody’s coming into my jail on that charge,” Maketa told The Gazette’s editorial department. “I will not cooperate with that in any way because in my view it’s not a legitimate and arrestable offense.”
The Colorado State board rescinded its gun ban because of a ruling by The Colorado Court of Appeals April 15 that said the ban at another institution, the University of Colorado, violates the Colorado Concealed Carry Act of 2003. The ruling revives a lawsuit brought against CU by Students for Concealed Carry on Campus that had been dismissed last spring by El Paso County District Judge G. David Miller. The CU Board of Regents has not rescinded its ban and may appeal the appellate court’s decision to the Colorado Supreme Court. The regents can appeal all they want and they will ultimately lose. What then?
“One has to comply with the law,” said CU Regent Kyle Hybl, a Colorado Springs attorney.
That means we can expect all state-campus gun bans to disappear in Colorado. They are illegal for good reason.
“The legislature protected concealed carry so that governing entities would not create safe havens for criminals,” Maketa said. “Gun bans tell criminals the risk is low. Criminals weigh risk versus reward, and they are comfortable with gun-free zones. We have more than 15,000 active concealed-carry permits in El Paso County and the number is growing. I like it when that gets out because it enters the mind of a criminal who’s contemplating a crime against a person.”
The Legislature did nothing to exempt students or campuses from the protections of the Concealed Carry Act, and the appellate court accepted none of CU’s arguments.
Campus gun bans get students killed because killers don’t obey them. It’s hard to know how the Virginia Tech massacre might have been different if all law-abiding adults hadn’t been disarmed. We know that psychopath Seung-Hui Cho disobeyed the gun ban and killed 33 students over a span of nearly three hours without resistance because nobody within sight or earshot of the carnage was armed.
Soon all campus gun bans will be gone in Colorado. Someday society may look back with disbelief regarding rules that made sitting ducks of young adults on campus.
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All I can say is that this action is past due. It's nice to savor this victory not because it's a pro-gunner vs. anti-gunner thing, but because it's a logic vs. illogic issue.
Take care.
DAL357
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