An Idaho legislative committee voted yesterday 11-8 to move a measure that would allow college students and staff to carry firearms on college and university campuses, a proposal that could cause multiple coronaries down in Olympia.
Neighboring Idaho is “gun country.” This column recently reported about a lawsuit filed by a student at the University of Idaho in Moscow, just across the border from Pullman and Washington State University. That lawsuit seeks to force the college to allow him to simply keep his firearm at an on-campus apartment.
This new measure, sponsored by State Rep. Erik Simpson (R-Idaho Falls) is designed to provide security to students who feel they do not have it. Opponents think guns do not belong on college campuses. Proponents suggest there are already guns there, in the hands of bad guys, and the good guys merely want a level playing field.
Naturally, campus administrators and campus cops are opposed to the idea.
“It’s a basic human right to be able to protect yourself from those who intend to do you harm. Those rights are being overturned by
Idaho colleges and universities who are creating a false sense of security for students, faculty and staff and the public by creating gun-free zones.”— Rep. Erik Simpson, R-Idaho Falls
If a proposal like this were floated in Olympia, one can imagine the outcry from Washington CeaseFire, the presidents at the University of Washington, WSU and other colleges and universities. On the flip side of that coin, however, is Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, the national grassroots organization founded the day after the Virginia Tech massacre. Their members would rather be college graduates than homicide statistics.
Let’s do a little poll:
Do you support campus carry?
Do you oppose campus carry?
MEANWHILE: The Washington State Court of Appeals Division 1 has set April 25 for oral arguments in the case of Winnie Chan et al v. City of Seattle, otherwise known as the case against the Seattle parks gun ban. Arguments are scheduled for 9:30 a.m.
The lawsuit was originally filed in 2009 after former Mayor Greg Nickels tried to dance around the state preemption law by adopting the ban as a parks regulation without city council approval. Nickels had pushed some type of ban since the shooting at the 2008 FolkLife Festival at the Seattle Center.
Attorney General Rob McKenna issued an advisory opinion that the prohibition would be in violation of state law, but Seattle initiated the ban, anyway. The city had been warned by the Second Amendment Foundation, National Rifle Association, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and other gun rights groups that they would sue, which they promptly did after Nickels announced the ban. Nickels lost in the 2009 mayoral primary, but his replacement, Mike McGinn, supports the ban and has joined Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an organization Nickels helped found.
SAF/NRA and its co-plaintiffs won the first round in King County Superior Court 13 months ago. The city appealed.
This column also welcomes a new colleague, Oakland, CA Gun Rights Examiner Yih-Chau Chang, whose work appears here.
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ALSO VISIT:
‘Winning Firearms Freedom One Lawsuit at a Time’
CITIZENS COMMITTEE FOR THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS
READ:
America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age
These Dogs Don’t Hunt: The Democrats’ War on Guns
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