CU-Boulder doesn't think gun restrictions discriminate against concealed-carry holders
In March, two years after adding Nerf guns to its list of banned weapons, CU was ordered by the Colorado Supreme Court to allow concealed-carry-permit holders to pack heat on campus. Now, CU-Boulder has announced new rules restricting access in undergrad dorms and at events -- but a spokesman doesn't think the regs will lessen the college experience for anyone with a CCP.
According to CU's Bronson Hilliard (disclosure: a longtime friend of yours truly), CU has nixed guns at football games, concerts and other ticketed events -- a policy CU's attorneys believe will pass muster in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling because tickets are contracts that people can choose to accept or not.
"Here's what I understand about it," Hilliard says. "The transaction of, for example, buying a ticket for a public event at CU is a transaction among equals. And as a result of that transaction, we're exercising the right to say no weapons in these venues even if you have a concealed-carry permit."
Bronson Hilliard.
The concept's the same as it relates to undergraduate dorms, so weapons are not okay there, either. However, the contract for a number of family housing units will be amended to allow concealed-carry-permit holders to have guns there so long as they meet university requirements for storing them safely.
The latter worry is why dorms are still off-limits for guns, Hilliard maintains. "It's not so much that there are major concerns around concealed-carry-permit holders themselves. It's what would happen to their weapon in an undergraduate environment -- if they left their dorm unlocked and somebody else were to get hold of the weapon in that environment. That's one of the issues I think people are misunderstanding."
Likewise, Hillard notes that individuals must be 21 or older to have a CCP in Colorado, "and presumably someone who's 21 has already had a lot of their college experience. Most of those folks don't want to live with eighteen- or nineteen-year-olds in a dorm anyway. They'd rather be living with other more mature students who are further along with their studies in a graduate-housing environment."
In his view, then, the family-housing units that will allow CCP are "not an inferior product in any way in terms of the housing experience. So I don't feel it is at all discriminatory." Rather, he believes the approach "strikes a balance of honoring the individual rights of concealed-carry-permit holders and protecting the safety of a very large population of eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds who are living on their own for the first time."
Besides, he emphasizes that "people with a permit can carry their weapon into classroom buildings, laboratories, administrative buildings. They're free to move about the campus" while strapped.
Page down to read more about CU-Boulder's new rules pertaining to concealed carry.
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