In a 12-3 ruling, a Florida District Court of Appeal ruled Tuesday that public universities may not prohibit college students from keeping guns in their cars when permitted by state law.
Although the outcome turned on the relatively mundane question of whether Florida law pre-empted colleges from making their own firearm regulations – Florida law currently bans guns on campus except for in parked cars – the judges trumpeted their respect for the Second Amendment and students’ right to self-defense.
“… If universities can regulate away a Second Amendment right, why not a First Amendment one? Or one protected by the Fourth or Fifth Amendment?” one judge wondered.
Judge Clay Roberts asserted that “restricting recreational activities is a far cry from restricting a fundamental, constitutional right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.”
Florida isn’t the first state to conclude that adults don’t check their Constitutional rights at the door when they show up at college.
According to the National Conference of State Legislators, Colorado, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin allow guns on college campuses — but schools in most of those states can still limit who can carry and where — due to state legislation or court rulings. Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Minnesota, Kentucky and North Carolina also allow guns in locked, parked vehicles. Only a few years ago, just Utah and a handful of individual colleges permitted guns on campus.
Contrary to the predictions of college “gun-free” zone advocates, gun violence hasn’t erupted in those states after relaxing their restrictions.
But given the horrific mass-shooting that occurred at Virginia Tech in 2007, students and college administrators are understandably nervous about allowing students to have weapons on campus. Of course, a broad gun ban and active campus police didn’t prevent Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho from murdering more than 30 people.
Contrast the tragedy at Virginia Tech with another Virginia school shooting that was largely ignored by the media. On Jan. 16, 2002, a gunman opened fire at the Appalachian School of Law. Upon hearing the shots, three students confronted the shooter, with the help of a handgun retrieved out of a vehicle. The gunman dropped his weapon and was pinned down until police arrived.
Unlike Virginia Tech, Appalachian School of Law was not a strict ‘gun-free’ zone. As the Florida legislature and 12 out of 15 Florida appellate judges concluded, maybe a few guns in the cars of law-abiding college students isn’t such a bad thing.
