Regents rebuff gun law
The Arizona Board of Regents wants to express very serious concerns about the recent change to A.R.S. § 12-781, which now requires the universities, as public establishments and employers, to allow individuals to bring guns onto campus property.
Although that law requires that guns be locked in vehicles, it increases both the proximity and ease of access to guns on campus. It also impinges on the authority of the Regents to establish rules for the maintenance of public order on its campuses, as authorized by A.R.S. § 13-2911.
As you know, ABOR is the constitutionally created body charged with responsibility for public universities in Arizona. The Legislature recognized that this responsibility included matters of conduct and public safety in adopting A.R.S. § 13-2911, which for over 30 years has given ABOR the authority to adopt rules for the maintenance of public order on its property.
ABOR and the universities it governs have adopted and enforced those rules, which have always prohibited weapons, including firearms, on campus. ABOR is in the best position to regulate conduct on its property.
The universities and campus police feel very strongly that weapons on campus present an unacceptable threat to campus safety. While recognizing the right of responsible individuals to possess firearms under other circumstances, as I personally do, the unique environment of a university campus makes the presence of any gun, even one in a locked car, unacceptable.
Members of the campus community come from a variety of different backgrounds, with varying levels of maturity and experience, and the presence of firearms in this environment increases the potential for access to those firearms by irresponsible individuals.
In 2002, a student in the University of Arizona College of Nursing murdered three faculty members before shooting and killing himself. This horrific scenarios and other incidents of gun-related violence at colleges and universities nationally have increased feelings of vulnerability and the urgency for resolving this important issue.
This issue can be resolved by amending A.R.S. § 12-781 to reflect the authority already granted to theegents by exempting from the statute any public body authorized in A.R.S. § 13-2911 or elsewhere to adopt rules for the maintenance of order on its property.
Ernest Calderón
President, ABOR
(In response to Catherine Smith’s Tuesday column, “Trial could change democracy in U.S.”)
I would like to voice frustrations that I’m positive not only I feel, but certainly the entire ASU lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and sexuality-questioning (LGBTQ) community feels.
To debase the arguments made by anti-Proposition 8 thinkers on the grounds that we are championing a victory for democracy is defensive at best and propaganda at worst.
"Democracy," a system that has indeed helped so many people escape oppression, is now and has been willing to sacrifice many peoples rights because the majority feels they do not deserve them. This has historically been proven: Jim Crowe Laws, the PATRIOT Act, etc. This is why there must be some sort of check on democracy. We see this check in John Marshall’s advent of judicial review, a system that has been used quite frequently in America’s history.
Let me be clear: People are using democracy to make millions of Americans’ pursuit of happiness impossible.
Democracy also did this a long time ago. I’m sure you weren’t around to see it, but you’ve studied it: the slave trade in America.
It was the passing of the 13th and 14th Amendments that forced states to relinquish slaves and allow them to live fruitful lives.
Now, Americans in California, Arizona, Utah and many other states are trying to exert their viewpoint into OUR lives.
Democracy, in other words, wants to tell me how to live my life.
If democracy wishes to do so, then I think its time for democracy to be challenged.
There is no statistical, empirical, economic or social proof that supports the danger of LGBT couples raising families. Quite the opposite, actually, as allowing gay marriage in California would generate huge sums of wealth for industry alone. I’m done with people trying to force me to be something I am not.
Democracy is destroying my freedom.
Harrison Gearns
Undergraduate
I’m writing to congratulate Catherine Smith on her Point/Counterpoint contribution in the Jan. 19 edition of The State Press. Her bigotry has finally achieved a level of sophistication that makes it worthy of rebuttal.
Ms. Smith writes, “Marriage to some is just a package of legal benefits. To others, it is the fundamental institution on which society is built.”
What is the reader supposed to make of this statement? That gays who seek to marry are only interested in the legal benefits of matrimony? If that were the case then this issue would have been decided long ago.
Polls have repeatedly shown that the majority of Americans are not opposed to civil unions between same-sex partners. It is only when the word “marriage” is introduced into the debate that problems arise. The very fact that gays continue to push for the right to marry proves that many of them are just as deluded as Ms. Smith as to the special nature of the institution of marriage.
Opposition to gay marriage is based on one thing and one thing only: religious beliefs. Democracy is not dependent on denying homosexuals the right to marry. It is dependent on the secular nature of our legislative processes. When majority rule is used to justify passing laws based on religious beliefs that is not democracy, it’s popular theocracy. What could be more tyrannical than a theocracy?
Christopher Davis
Alumni
(In response to Tuesday’s editorial, “ASU: The new Wild West?”)
I am one of the full-time gun rights examiners at Examiner.com. I often read anti-gun articles that are filled with assumptions by authors who did not consult Second Amendment experts. Please permit me to respond to the issues of your Jan. 19 editorial.
First, the editorial board suggests not pissing off your professor. This is one of those assumptions that a gun owner will respond in anger and not in purpose. This is a defamation of gun owners (and professors) everywhere, and presumes anger over good judgment and authority.
The board’s caveat on arming teachers was whether armed teachers (or armed anyone, such as armed students) would help or hurt: “But Arizona should be wary of passing a gun law for the sake of asserting the right to have guns.”
This is not the nature of the debate. It is all about how you and you alone are responsible for your own safety and how the police are not responsible for your safety.
With regard to violence on campus, it is important to mention the following:
1. All adults have all legal authority to stop a crime in progress. This is especially important in cases of rape, mayhem, abduction and murder on campus. A ubiquitous awareness of this in the student body can make all the difference in being a victim and refusing to be a victim.
2. The target is their own best first line of defense. Where a crime is an offense to society, the armed citizen is the first line of defense for the community in the absence of first responders.
3. Police have no duty to protect individuals from the criminal acts of others, and they may not even be able to respond in time when summoned.
4. A citizen has the authority to bring lethal force to bear on the reasonable apprehension of facing grave danger.
5. Gun owners are not belligerent: The presumption that a gun owner responds in anger is an example of a poor understanding of the concept of the armed citizen and of citizen authority.
6. Churches are coming to accept the armed among the congregation. In 2009, 15 Southern California churches invited CCW members to attend services armed, and others around the nation advertised “Bring your gun to church day.” Cases of armed congregants de-escalating violence are easily located on the Web.
7. Guns on campus do not increase accidents. Accidental discharge has not been a problem in the discussion of authentic cases anywhere.
8. Saying that police presence proves that Arizona is not a vigilante state is to reflect a poor understanding of citizen authority to act as much as what is and isn’t vigilante.
As a public trust, institutions of higher education may not oppose the authority of the sovereign whom they serve, but must support it.
College campuses can benefit enormously from inviting authoritative private gun owners to speak to their violence prevention centers.
The core of the Second Amendment is not that it is a right, and one not subject to political sway or majority, but a functioning safeguard of many things in our nation of one people, not the least of which is personal safety of adult college students.
John Longenecker
Reader
