Gun Rights Battle Heats Up at Colleges
by Dave Workman
Senior Editor
In Utah, the state legislature was compelled to pass legislation to force the administration at the University of Utah to comply with the existing state preemption statute on concealed carry, and the issue appears still headed for court.
Further West, Brian Stubbs, a graduate student in physics at the University of Oregon at Eugene, has filed a federal lawsuit against that school, in an effort to defend his firearms civil rights. His story was reported in the Mar. 10 issue of Gun Week.
Now, at Washington State’s Central Washington University in Ellensburg, student Jusdan Pang is trying to work through the system to change an administrative code barring firearms on campus so that it provides an exemption for anyone—student or visitor—who is legally licensed to carry. Pang simply wants the code to be brought into conformance with a state statute that defines where firearms can and cannot be carried; a statute that offers a specific exemption from such bans to licensed private citizens.
Pang told Gun Week that he has spoken to a campus policy committee and the chief of the campus police. While he is suspicious that he may be forced to jump through lots of hoops, and ultimately told that the policy will not change, he is going through each step in order to build his case. He’s already consulted with the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, based in Bellevue, WA, and was planning to speak once again to the university president’s advisory council this month. He had also contacted National Rifle Association attorney Robert Dowlut.
The problem Pang faces does not appear to be that unusual. It’s not just an issue of personal protection, but of allowing students to have firearms in campus housing, and even in their vehicles parked on university property. Pang lives in Student Village, a housing complex on campus. As a student, he can pursue all of his hobbies—which include music, studying ancient Hebrew and Chinese—but one: shooting. He is a member of the campus College Republicans, graduated with honors from his high school in Federal Way, WA, and has received numerous scholarships.
Ellensburg, like many college towns across the nation—including states that have passed concealed carry and state preemption laws—is located in the middle of “hunting country.” There is rich farmland loaded with pheasants, the uplands have grouse and wild turkey populations, deer and elk. Students away from home find themselves with something of a dilemma, in that they may want to have a rifle or shotgun for hunting, yet face campus bans on guns.
This begs the question in Pang’s mind: Must a student give up his or her gun rights, self-defense rights and forego any opportunities to hunt, simply to attend school?
Pang has certainly met resistance, with concerns about guns on campus. He noted that nobody seems to be aware that there have been incidents in which firearms played a key role in stopping school violence.
Perhaps the most significant was the Jan. 16, 2002 shooting spree at the Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, VA. A Nigerian student named Peter Odighizuwa went on a rampage, gunning down six people, three of them fatally, before other students stopped him. The media appears to have deliberately omitted the fact that two of those students, Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges, were armed.
Teenage gunman Luke Woodham, who perpetrated the 1997 school shooting at a high school in Pearl, MS, was also brought to an abrupt halt at gunpoint.
This time, assistant principal Joel Myrick, retrieved a .45-caliber handgun from his car, parked off campus, and held the youth at gunpoint until police arrived. Again, the major media ignored Myrick’s heroism with a gun.
Pang does not appear interested in these heroics; he just wants the college policy on firearms to reflect the state law. This is the same situation occurring in Utah and Oregon, where it would come as no surprise to anyone that many students are legally licensed to carry firearms, or simply happen to be hunters or target shooters.
In his effort to change the code for Central Washington University, Pang understands that he is pushing to set a precedent that very likely will impact every other publicly-owned university, college and community college in the Evergreen State. In fact, he seems eager to be the catalyst for that kind of change.
Pang is a tall, unassuming 21-year-old senior student who sees something he believes to be wrong, and simply wants to right it. He may have the law on his side, depending upon one’s perspective. He appears to have the state constitution in his corner, also. Article 1, Section 24 of that document recognizes the right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves and the state.
Washington’s legislature passed state preemption almost 20 years ago, being among the first, if not the first, to adopt such a statute. State law trumps the Washington Administrative Code (WAC), yet virtually every public university in the state has its own specific WAC addressing firearms on the campus. A few of those WACs allow firearms on campus with written authorization. Most codes, however, ban them outright except for law enforcement.
State statute, however, does not specifically prohibit firearms on college campuses, only on public school campuses. One law allows cities, towns, counties and other municipalities to enact ordinances restricting firearms, but that statute specifically exempts persons licensed to carry under state law. This statute does not specifically address college and university campuses, so it might be argued that this is a legal “gray area.”
Pang acknowledged that he faces an uphill fight, but he is convinced the principle is worthy. He also knows that his effort may not benefit him, personally, but if he is successful, legally-armed students who follow in his path may one day have him to thank.
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