THIS IS A CONTINUATION
OF YESTERDAY'S
POST
For decades, guns were prohibited on the campuses of
Oregon's university system. The policy
was widely popular among students and staff and the general public. But the extremist pro-gun group, Oregon
Firearms Federation, in their agenda to put more guns in more hands and more
places, brought
a lawsuit on behalf of a student.
After years in the courts and many tens of thousands of dollars from
O.F.F., the Oregon Appeals Court last year ruled
university system policy was preempted by a state statute.
This extremist group and their pocket politician, Kim
Thatcher, unhappy even with that ruling, then started pushing for guns in grade
schools. Their
first target was the Newberg School System.
When the gun lobby threatened another costly lawsuit at the cost of
student education, the Newberg School District caved into pressure and allowed
concealed guns on their campuses, as quietly as possible.
Make no doubt about it:
they won't stop there. When will extremists target your kid's school?
Only an extremist would want guns where our children study
and congregate. It's not enough that Oregon
gun extremists from O.F.F. have written bills to arm felons, reduce background checks,
destroy
background check records, and allow
concealed weapons permits for drug addicts; now they want armed people with
hidden weapons around our youth -- people who can get their permits without
ever having to fire a single bullet in training, who didn't need to have even a
minute of training in crisis management, and who may have wanted a gun for
questionable purposes (one purpose, often stated by these guys, is to
"protect" other people as
if they were the police). Despite
what the gun lobbies want you to think, people with concealed handguns do have
accidents and do
commit gun crimes, even
murders.
HERE
is a recent example of a conceal carry permit holder, a janitor at a
Connecticut elementary school, who took off his gun belt while working in the
school and accidentally left it there, in full reach of children, and left the
building. Luckily, a teacher found the
loaded gun before children could get hold of it.
HERE
is another recent example, from here in Oregon, where a school security guard
accidentally left his loaded gun somewhere on his route, patrolling Salem's 14
schools. He thought it might have been
at a shopping mall, but there was no way to know for sure, and the school
system had to call all 6000 parents. As
far as I know, it was never found.
As I pointed out in
yesterday's post, O.F.F.'s lawsuit only succeeded in one thing: bringing out into the open the extremism of
the gun lobby. Now the public knows how
far they will go to put more guns in more hands and in more places, no matter
what the consequences.
Well,
students and faculty of Oregon universities are overwhelmingly against the idea
of guns on campus, as
they are at universities across the nation, and people with conceal carry
permits represent only a small fraction of the general population. There
are good reasons why the overwhelming majority of the 4,314 colleges
and universities in the United States prohibit students and faculty from
carrying concealed handguns on campus.
Not a single student or faculty member I've talked to here has been
supportive of guns on campus.
After
last year's ruling, the Oregon University System began considering their
options. Today
it was announced that concealed guns are once again prohibited at universities
in Oregon.
From
today's article in Eugene's Register-Guard:
The new internal rules prohibit students, employees, vendors and people who use campus facilities or attend ticketed events from carrying concealed weapons on campus, even if they have a permit to do so. The new rules were approved unanimously and take effect immediately.....[A] different appellate ruling found that local governments and state agencies can enact internal rules restricting weapons. That’s because internal rules do not carry the force of state statutes and therefore don’t conflict with the Legislature’s exclusive authority over gun laws, officials have said.....The new policy isn’t quite as far-reaching as the earlier administrative rules, which flatly prohibited any guns anywhere on a campus. The new gun policy applies to campus buildings but not grounds and wouldn’t apply to visitors who don’t have a business relationship with a university, haven’t purchased a ticket to an event or aren’t visiting a campus building.....In response to a question about how the rules would be enforced, Oregon University System Chancellor George Pernsteiner said it would depend on who was found carrying a weapon. A student would face sanctions through the student code of conduct, an employee through the appropriate discipline and grievance procedures, and vendors through contract enforcement, he said. Visitors who violated the rules would be asked to leave campus and could face trespass charges, he said.
The new rules do have exceptions for law enforcement officers, ROTC programs and people living in family housing. They also allow campuses to permit unloaded firearms to be stored on campus by students or employees who use them for hunting or target shooting.
According
to O.F.F.'s fringe executive director, Kevin Starrett, the students should be
supportive of more guns around them, to
fend off rape attempts:
“College campuses are, like, baby, that’s open season,” he said. “There’s a bunch of, like, 19-year-old girls walking around in the dark. You’ve got to be stupid to think those places are somehow safer than anywhere else.”
So
you would expect the student body to decry this most recent attempt to adhere
to the "guns are allowed" Appellate Court ruling, right? Quite the opposite. According
to Ben Eckstein, the University of Oregon student body president:
“A college campus is statistically one of the safest places on the planet. There’s a reason for that. We have a culture of peaceful, informed, engaged activism. A deadly weapon of any kind runs counter to that culture,” he said.
Eckstein
went on to say, in
a different article:
“We cannot and must not go down a path that weaponizes our college campuses,” he said. “The sanctity of our learning environments and the safety of our campus communities are too important.”
So how did O.F.F.'s executive director
respond to the new ruling? He
decided that the Oregon University System regulation, well-vetted by their
lawyers, should be ignored and is, in his mind, "unlawful." In a typical, pro-criminal manner, he actually suggested that O.F.F. members
rebel against the new no-guns-on-campus ruling by the Oregon University System
and carry their guns anyway! From their
most recent alert:
We strongly recommend that if you have any reason to be on Oregon University property, you do what they have done: ignore regulations. If the OUS feels free to pay no attention to the clear direction of the Oregon Courts, any rational person would pay no attention to their unlawful regulations.
If you are a CHL holder, carry your self-defense tool.
What he is no doubt hoping for is
another incident like the one that started their
initial lawsuit so he can waste tens of thousands of more dollars of
their donors' money (and fund his own paid position, while he's at it). Let's hope no one is stupid enough to listen
to him, but if they do, I urge O.F.F. to try another lawsuit. It will be yet another tremendous waste of
their resources for a policy which doesn't actually represent the views of
students and faculty they purport to represent.
Don't let the gun extremists determine
our legislative priorities! This is a
win for common sense gun regulation at Oregon universities, but there is so
much more to do to protect our community.
I'll leave you with this revealing quote:
"First, we believe in absolutely gun-free, zero-tolerance, totally safe schools. That means no guns in America's schools, period ... with the rare exception of law enforcement officers or trained security personnel."
I'll leave you with this revealing quote:
"First, we believe in absolutely gun-free, zero-tolerance, totally safe schools. That means no guns in America's schools, period ... with the rare exception of law enforcement officers or trained security personnel."
--Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice President, speech to their 1999 Annual Meeting
