LANSING, MICHIGAN — Concealed carriers on university campuses will now be doing so with the full privilege of the law being on their side. According to the Oakland Post, the Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee cleared Senate Bills 442 and 561 to go to the Senate floor. The Senate has yet to vote in the measure but initial political prognosis appears to be in favor of the bills.
This ties in with several stories we covered discussing ongoing legal battles between concealed and open carriers and the State of Michigan. In a most recent case, an Ann Arbor resident sued the University of Michigan over infringing his right to bear arms on campus.
In another ridiculous story, an associate professor at Oakland University caught a glimpse of a man with a gun in his waistline and ran blubbering to the police. It turns out the guy was an off-duty police officer and legally allowed to carry. The chief of police for Oakland University then had to explain to someone with a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) that the man had committed no crime and nothing was wrong.
She probably went on to blog about it extensively somewhere on her Tumblr. But that’s conjecture, your honor.
Oakland University didn’t stop there. They were sure to cause a big ole ruckus and call up some inane ordinance that stipulates an instructor can suddenly decide to feel threatened by whatever and ask an armed student to leave.
As Kevin Grimm, former president of the American Association for University Professors told a correspondent at Oakland Post, “remember that the instructor has not only a right, but a responsibility to ensure a safe learning environment in his/her classroom.”
If the instructor had a concealed firearm and was competent in its use, he or she probably wouldn’t feel as threatened when seeing an off-duty police officer being spotted with a concealed carry handgun.
It’s a round-robin cycle, every time.
At least the Michigan state legislature appears poised to push forward bills that would effectively castrate the efforts of ivory tower-types to restrict the lawful rights of their students.
Don’t worry. They’ll find ways around it — just like they’re trying to in Texas.
Is it a stereotype that academia are just amazingly anti-gun or is it just people who are so subtracted from reality that they think it’s okay to limit others’ constitutional rights?
What if we made a bunch of arbitrary rules stating they don’t get to practice their First Amendment rights to free speech? What would that look like? It would look barbaric and draconian, to say the least. But somehow, the people that are theoretically teaching the future are completely cool with squashing the Second for completely inane and arbitrary reasons.
Eh, well, until SB 442 and 561 pass.
