Face the State Staff Report
A lawsuit brought against the University of Colorado by a group of students challenging CU's concealed carry gun ban has been dismissed. In analyzing the decision, which was made based on a technicality, a leading national gun expert says CU leaders must still address larger inconsistencies and inequities resulting from the policy.
The suit was brought by members of Students For Concealed Carry On Campus, known as SCCC. In August, members petitioned CU to reconsider its own prohibition of concealed carried permits on campus. After having the petition rejected by the Board of Regents, SCCC turned to the courts. 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 concluding that the ban was not subject to the Colorado Concealed Carry Act. Passed earlier that year, it allowed for properly licensed individuals to carry a concealed weapon in most other parts of the state.
Central to the decision (PDF) made by 4th Judicial District Justice David Miller was whether CU's Board of Regents serves as a local government or statewide authority. If the court found the board to be a local government, the students’ case would have been allowed to proceed. Under the operative language of Colorado’s Concealed Carry Act, or CCA, "a local government does not have authority to adopt or enforce an ordinance or resolution that would conflict with any provision of the CCA."
Miller's decision reads, "Although the CCA does not define 'a local government', it is apparent from the case law that the courts have not treated the Regents as a 'local government', but rather a statewide authority with its own legislative powers over distinct geographical areas."
Dave Kopel is a Second Amendment expert and serves as the Independence Institute’s Research Director. He successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court the repeal of Washington D.C.'s gun ban in 2008. He said there is certainly room for argument about the definition of "local government," but the issue is bigger than this technicality.
"The case itself shows there is room for argument on the issue of the definition of local government," he told Face The State. "On one hand, the regents are a statewide entity, but on the other hand what they govern is quite local. But what we do know is there have been at least three school shootings that have been interrupted by carriers of lawful firearms.”
Kopel specifically referenced a shooting this week at a college in Georgia, where two assailants broke into a party, planning to kill 10 people. “They were stopped and lives were saved because one of the victims had a lawful gun."
Jim Manley, an attorney with Mountain States Legal Foundation, represented SCCC in the case. He questioned the court’s willingness to accept CU’s definition of local government.
"The court accepted CU's characterization wholesale without addressing any of our givings about the meaning of a local government," Manley said. "Also, the ruling implies that the right to self defense doesn't exist on campus."
Kopel also questioned the message CU is sending to faculty and students about self defense on campus.
"It's one thing [for CU] to say we don't want a 22-year-old on campus with a gun, but it's something else to say, for somebody who is 55 and has been professor here for 20 years, ‘well, we don't trust that person to have firearm here even through that person carries a firearm everywhere else in the state,’" added Kopel.
According to Manley, an appeal is due June 15th and his clients plan to file shortly. Kopel acknowledges there is room for more litigation, but isn't overly optimistic about the prospects of a successful appeal in this case. "Courts generally like to rule in favor of the status quo and upholding government power, so I think it's not surprising that in a case where you can make plausible legal arguments both ways, the court decided in favor of the government currently in power," he said.