Colorado students fight for gun rights in face of campus ban

UPDATE: CSU bans guns from campuses

TREVOR HUGHES
Fort Collins Coloradoan
February 24, 2010

Decision comes without discussion; appeal planned

Without discussion, the CSU Board of Governors on Tuesday morning banned weapons on the university system’s Fort Collins and Pueblo campuses, including guns carried by concealed-carry permit holders.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

The board unanimously approved the plans on a voice vote. They take effect Aug. 1, although opponents have already threatened a lawsuit and a related case is set to be heard by the Colorado Court of Appeals next month.

In the Fort Collins campus ban, virtually all weapons will be barred from campus, although there will be narrow exemptions for academic, military and law-enforcement purposes, or if someone can show they are in imminent danger. The ban for the Pueblo campus permits people to carry Tasers, pepper spray or Mace.

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Colorado students fight for gun rights

David Usborne
London Independent
February 24, 2010

What seemed like common sense to some is nothing less than an assault on the US Constitution to others, which is why a governors meeting at Colorado State University today to approve a ban on students bearing concealed weapons on its main campus in Fort Collins is likely to be rowdy.

Preventing bloodshed is the first thing on the board’s mind. It is three years since the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech that took the lives of 32 students and staff and just under two weeks since Amy Bishop, a professor at the University of Alabama, allegedly shot six of her colleagues, killing three of them.

Yet there has been such a push-back against the plan that the board may defer a decision today to await further public comment. The proposed change in the rules has reignited emotions about the place of guns in American culture. It is a debate that gets snarled in the conflicting logic of gun ownership rights and the simple notion that bullets and blackboards don’t mix.

State law allows citizens to carry concealed weapons as long as they have a permit. And many of the 22,000 students at the Fort Collins campus say they should not be treated differently from ordinary Coloradans. In December, the students’ governing body voted overwhelmingly to resist the gun ban.

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This article was posted: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 3:20 pm

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