Colorado Campus Carry Ban Over Thanks To Court Ruling

Colorado Campus Carry Ban Over Thanks To Court Ruling
Colorado Campus Carry Ban Over Thanks To Court Ruling

Colorado –-(Ammoland.com)- Today, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the CU Regents cannot ban concealed carry on their campuses.

This ruling supported the decision of a court of appeals from April 2010 and reversed a position paper by then-Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar (an opinion which the current Attorney General, John Suthers, refused to change).

The crux of today’s ruling states that the Colorado General Assembly did, in fact, intend on concealed carry permit holders to be able to carry on all campuses, statewide.

“First CSU and the Community Colleges, and now all the CU Campuses; finally, the administrators for Colorado’s public colleges have been told they don’t have dictatorial powers,” said Dudley Brown, Executive Director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO), and a lobbyist for the entire 9-year battle for Colorado’s Concealed Carry Act.

“The creation of this criminal safezone, where only criminals are armed, was ill-advised and dangerous to anyone who finds themselves on a college campus,” Brown said.

“Now, RMGO will move on to force more publicly owned facilities to live by the law.”

RMGO’s brief in this case cited, amongst other items, the intent of the Colorado General Assembly when it passed the 2003 Concealed Carry Act, by quoting two legislators who served in the 2003 legislature, and who stood steadfastly on the side of gun owners.

State Senator Ted Harvey’s statement in that brief said:

“When the current concealed carry law was debated in 2003, there was much discussion about whether permit holders could carry on colleges and universities. The final, passed-into-law version of SB03-24 reflected the wishes of the legislature: a permit holder would be allowed to carry on state-owned colleges and universities, unless those schools went to the trouble of putting metal detectors and security personnel at every entrance. That’s why the current law reads as it does, and why many of us were surprised that some colleges and universities have violated state law.”

State Senator Brophy echoed those comments when he stated:

“In 2003, I served in the Colorado State House and I was involved in the passage of what is now codified as Colorado’s Concealed Carry Act (C.R.S. 18-12-201 et seq.)(“CCA”). During the consideration of the bill that became the CCA, it was absolutely clear that the General Assembly intended that the CCA be the controlling and dominant law in Colorado. The purpose was to fully legislate in the area to avoid a patchwork pattern of conflicting and likely confusing local regulations that could prevent uniform enforcement of a statewide law.

To that end, the General Assembly enacted C.R.S. 18-12-201 which is a legislative declaration intended to express the will of the General Assembly that the CCA be controlling and applicable statewide, and that it apply, without exception, in all areas of the State of Colorado with the only exceptions being specifically listed in statute. College campuses were not listed as an exemption from the CCA.”

Today’s decision makes the CU Regents ban null and void, despite the position of some of the Regents, such as RINO Kyle Hybl from Colorado Springs, who publicly decried this decision.

RMGO also has a lawsuit against Northern Colorado Medical Center, a county-owned hospital in Greeley, for banning concealed handguns at that facility.

Background:
The battle for “Shall Issue” concealed carry in Colorado raged for 9 years, culminating in the 2003 law.

RMGO played a pivotal role in that battle, working to pass a good statute but refusing to accept the myriad compromises floated during that battle by the institutional gun lobby and their minions.

Note: it should be stated for the record that the institutional gun lobby and/or their state affiliate routinely endorsed a ban on campus carry, restaurant and bar, and church carry, an opposition to language restricting the entry of permit holders into a statewide criminal database (which is now defunct) and dozens of other vital issues to Colorado’s gun-carrying population.


About Rocky Mountain Gun Owners

Based in Colorado, Rocky Mountain Gun Owners is Colorado’s largest state-based gun lobby. It is a group solely dedicated to the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Our strategy is simple: don’t give an inch. Visit: www.rmgo.org

Rocky Mountain Gun Owners

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Mark

The creation of this criminal safezone, where only criminals are armed, was ill-advised and dangerous to anyone who finds themselves on a college campus,” Brown said.