Utah gets a gun friendly shout out on Lou Dobbs.

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DOBBS: New efforts tonight to restore second amendment rights on college campuses. Imagine that, somebody supporting the second amendment out there. Many states and colleges have simply disregarded the constitution. They have barred and by all prospects unconstitutionally their students from possessing firearms on campus. Now, some state legislatures are acting to revoke those bans. Bill Tucker has our story -- Bill?

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well Lou, there's only one state where a person can carry a concealed weapon on the campus without fear of being arrested for violating the law and that state is Utah. The law not only says concealed carry is legal, but that colleges can't opt out. Outside of Utah, there are only two campuses, Colorado State University and Blue Ridge Community College in Virginia, where you can carry concealed weapons, [is there really only two schools?] but that may be about to change. In ten states, there are bills which would allow for concealed carry of weapons on college campuses. There are three states looking at going in the other direction. They have bills pending specifically to prohibit the carry of concealed weapons. The group, Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, thinks those states are sadly mistaken and are pushing for concealed carry on every campus in every state.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL GUZMAN, CONCEALED CARRY ON CAMPUS: We give the criminal a government guarantee that their intended victims on a college campus, school or church, that they are unarmed and unable to defend themselves. It stacks the odds in favor of the criminal which is not what we should be doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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For those who have not read, I wrote an email to Mike Guzman about a comment he made a while back. Here is that email, and the thread that sparked my response.

http://opencarry.mywowbb.com/forum51/21466-1.html


[font="'PrimaSans BT,Verdana,sans-serif'"]

[font="'PrimaSans BT,Verdana,sans-serif'"]Mr. Guzman,

My name is Kevin Jensen. I am the Utah State Researcher for opencarry.org. I just finished reading your letter addressed to opencarry.org of Texas. I am not a resident of Texas, and I take no issue with your stance on Open carry in Texas. I do, however, take issue with the following comment of yours regarding concealed carry.

"SCCC views Texas as the main battleground in the fight to allow concealed carry on campus around the country. Our strategy is to get one major state to pass concealed carry on campus, allow other states to realize the worst-case scenarios are not happening and to see other states begin passing their own similar laws. This strategy is analogous to Florida passing right-to-carry in 1987 when there were only 10 RTC states and now there are 40. Florida has served as a model of RTC for many states. We hope that Texas will become the model for concealed carry on campus. The implications are nation-wide. "

I would like to bring to your attention the State of Utah. This battle has been fought, and won. While you might not consider the State of Utah to be a "major state", I am sure that you realize that firearms possession at school, openly or concealed, is a reality in Utah. In fact, the State of Utah is the only state in the U.S. that specifically authorizes firearms possession inpublic schoolsby statute.

And not just at college campuses either. No public school in Utah, K-12, University, or otherwise, may enact or enforce any rules pertaining to firearms. As long as a person has a concealed firearm permit issued by the State of Utah, that person may carry openly or concealed, loaded or unloaded, in any Utah public school, without fear of punishment by law or academic sanctions.

I do applaud your efforts in Texas to advance concealed carry in college campuses. However, I do believe that your organization should be looking at the State of Utah as your "model for concealed carry on campus". I recently visited concealedcampus.org and clicked Utah on your map. It makes no mention of the legality of firearms possession at Utah schools. In fact, just the opposite is true. Utah is listed in "the list of 25 states that expressly prohibit concealed carry on college campuses."

I have included links to Utah's preemption that covers this topic, as well as a link to the Utah State Supreme Court decision (University of Utah v. Shurtleff) that reaffirms this. I have also included a link to the Utah State Attorney General opinion that sparked this lawsuit, and a link to opencarry.org's "college carry map".


Thank you for your efforts,

Kevin Jensen
Utah State Researcher,
opencarry.org[/font]

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And this was his reply...

Kevin,

Thank you for your email. We are fully aware about Utah allowing concealed handguns on campus. We have recently unveiled a new website within the last few days and are still in the process of bringing it up to date.

The reason that Utah is currently not the model for cc on campus is because there simply aren't many public colleges in Utah. It is not a very populated state just as the 10 RTC states before Florida that already had concealed carry. Utah has 9 public universities whereas Texas has well over 150. These can be studied in greater depth than the university system in Utah.

Thank you again for bringing this to my attention.

Mike

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[/font]
So, Mr. Guzman does not recognize Utah as a major state. Well, CNN does. And in my opinion, CNN trumps Mike Guzman, so I would like to declare Utah as "The Official Model for Campus Carry".

Notice that I did not need to limit my declaration to concealed carry, Mike?

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So, Mr. Guzman does not recognize Utah as a major state. Well, CNN does. And in my opinion, CNN trumps Mike Guzman, so I would like to declare Utah as "The Official Model for Campus Carry

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Here, here!

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One of Mike Guzman's arguments about Utah was "because there simply aren't many public colleges in Utah."

Well, if CNN is correct, and only two campuses in the other 49 states allow firearm possession, then that means Utah has more schools that allow firearms than all of the other 49 states COMBINED!

How is that for a major state, Mike??

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http://www.dailytargum.com/opinions/presence-of-guns-good-for-defense-1.1636545

Presence of guns good for defense Letter
Aaron Williams

Published:Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Updated:Tuesday, March 31, 2009

In response to the editorial “Guns Don’t Solve Violence,” which ran on March 30: Now that you have stated your opinion on the matter of concealed carry on campus, allow me to air out the facts behind the issue. While one would think that more guns on campus would lead to more accidental shootings, more violent crimes or drunken rampages, you would be wrong. It would be hard to defend the above stated arguments because it simply hasn’t happened on college campuses that allow concealed carry. In fact, since the fall semester of 2005, in all nine public colleges in Utah licensed students are allowed to carry concealed. Since 2003, students at Colorado State University and Blue Ridge Community College have been allowed to carry concealed. At these 11 schools, after a combined total of more than 80 semesters none of the schools have seen a resulting incident of gun violence, not a single gun accident or a single gun theft.

Violence is never the answer— that’s why in about 2,000,000 cases a year where guns are used for self-defense, they are fired only 3 percent of the time. The presence of the gun alone is enough to deter an attacker. For example, in 1997 at Pearl High School in Mississippi a student, Luke Woodham, went on a shooting rampage and was stopped by the school’s assistant principal after he retrieved a handgun from his truck. Vice Principal Joel Myrick was able to subdue the young man at gunpoint until the police arrived. A year later there was a shooting at a school dance in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, which was ended abruptly by a local restaurant owner, who showed up with a shotgun and disarmed the shooter before he could kill anyone else.

In 2002, two students at Appalachian School of Law in Virginia used their personal firearms to end a shooter’s rampage; they were able to hold the shooter until the police arrived. Guns are violent weapons but how else would you stop a sociopathic killer, have them hug it out? I have talked to a few students from Virginia Tech and they believe that allowing students to carry concealed on campus could have helped save lives on that tragic day.

There is a strong anti-gun bias, especially in New Jersey. My advice to those who are biased about guns: get educated about them. I find that most people who are biased against guns know nothing about them. If you would like to become educated about firearms and the issues behind them, please feel free to contact me or visit concealedcampus.org.

Aaron Williams is a Rutgers College junior majoring in economics. He is president of the Rutgers Firearms Association and a member of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.