Students for Concealed Carry, a
gun rights group,
is suing Ohio State University for maintaining an illegally
broad anti-gun policy that prevents students from carrying guns
even when they aren’t on campus property—a violation of state law,
according to the group.
State law prohibits students from carrying guns on college
campuses. SFCC isn’t fighting that. But the law specifically
permits students to bring their guns onto campus as long as they
leave them locked in their cars. OSU’s student handbook, however,
forbids students from bringing guns onto campus at all, even if the
weapons are left behind in locked cars, and even “if otherwise
permitted by state law.”
Lawyers representing the two groups, SFCC and Ohioans for
Concealed Carry, say public universities can’t trump state law and
establish even stricter anti-gun policies.
“The Ohio Revised Code is clear that the legislature retains
sole authority to regulate the possession of firearms,” said Derek
DeBrosse, one of the two lawyers representing the groups, in a
statement. “Ohio State’s policies are in direct violation of the
law.”
The discrepancies between state law and OSU’s gun policies are
not trivial. Under state law, students who drive to campus through
dangerous neighborhoods have the right to bring firearms with them
for protection, as long as they leave their guns in their cars.
OSU’s handbook makes this impossible, however.
Students are also forbidden under OSU policy from possessing
guns while engaged in official university activities, even if those
activities take place off campus.
In implementing such a strict anti-gun policy, OSU
administrators—utilizing the bad logic of “gun free zones,” i.e.,
zones where potential victims are guaranteed to be unarmed—believed
they were somehow keeping their students safer. But Zachary
Zalneraitis, director of public relations at SFCC, said that
stripping students of even the most basic ability to defend
themselves doesn’t make anyone safer.
“Universities typically did not allow concealed carry in the
past, but in the places where it has been implemented, we haven’t
seen the doom and gloom that [administrators] predicted,” he told
Reason.
The court date is set for July of 2015.
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