In March of this year, the Supreme Court threw out the University of Colorado’s gun ban, claiming it as a direct violation of Colorado’s Concealed Carry Act, which allows CU’s students to conceal and carry weapons on campus. This is much to the dismay of a handful of the university’s faculty and student population, who feel that bringing weapons into the classroom is not conducive to the learning environment.
But all this happened prior to the mass shooting that took place in an Aurora movie theater in July of this year, at the hands of a UC Denver student named James Holmes. Needless to say, this tragic act of gun violence was sure to spark up both sides of a very heated debate about the right to bear arms.
The university recently held a campus town hall meeting to address the Concealed Carry Act which was enforced by the Supreme Court.
Mimi Wesson is a professor of law at the University of Colorado, who is quite troubled with the thought that a student can potentially bring a weapon into her classroom or office, and feels that firearms on campus detracts from the learning environment.
“I’m sorry, but I’m not persuaded,” said Wesson during the debate. “It really is heartbreaking to me to hear people in this room talking about how everyone feels victimized by everyone else. This is so antithetical to the kind of the learning environment that a university should provide.”
Madison Meyer is a freshman business major at the university who believes it is important that anyone on campus with a carrying permit should do just so, in order to help protect other students and the campus at large.
“I think that the right to bear arms on campus helps to keep people safe,” said Meyer. “People who are crazy enough to hurt others won’t care about whether the law says they can bear arms or not, so they would be the only ones armed, and there would be no one else to counter them. So if students have the right to bear arms, it would help to keep everyone by providing a deterrent to criminals.”
A panel of CU professionals was on hand for the meeting to address key points about the act including Chancellor Philip DiStefano, Provost Russell Moore, and Managing Senior Associate Counsel John Sleeman.
Despite the continued display of anxiety from faculty and students, Sleeman ensured that the university would remain a safe place to teach and to learn.
“Our goal is to make sure the university can carry out its mission of research, teaching and service in a safe manner,” Sleeman said. “We recognize that some people are uncomfortable with the presence of weapons in the classroom carried by someone with a permit. That in and of itself is not a threat.”
The panel assured the faculty and students that safety is given the utmost priority for the university and that anyone in noncompliance of policies would face serious consequence.