This employee over at Point Park University seems to think it would be just awful if we were to pass campus carry in Pennsylvania, as other states are currently debating. Hate to tell you prof, but there’s no such crime as carrying a firearm on a university campus in Pennsylvania, provided you have an LTC. The worst that can happen is the school can ask you to leave (permanently, if you’re a student). This issue has not been pressing in this Commonwealth, because unlike the other states where this is being debated, carry on college campuses isn’t criminalized. If we were to have such a bill here, it would only be a matter of disallowing state funded universities from having such a policy prohibiting guns on campus.
12 thoughts on “Campus Carry in PA”
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Luzerne county seems to think it is a crime…
http://www.snowflakesinhell.com/2011/03/02/odd-gun-charge/
Every day I had a LTCF, I carried at PSU. I never told a single person and made sure it was well concealed.
Lets fix this up a bit. Point Park University is not a state run university, it’s a private institution. So this author is not a Pitt employee. Second being a private institution, Point Park University has private property rights and no law should tell you who or what you have to allow on your private property.
@David
How private is Point Park? Do they receive any state or federal funds? We’re having this problem in Texas, where “private” schools are exempted from a current bill to allow Campus Carry on state run schools. But Baylor University, a “private” school, accepts money from the state.
My view is that on TRUE private property, the owner reigns supreme. If you’re accepting my tax money to fund your “private” property, I should have a bit of a say in whether or not I get to exercise my rights there. Just my personal .02
David brings up some good points. Point Park University is a private school, and if memory serves, it has a more contained campus that Pitt. While that may or may not have any bearing on safety it eliminates the main problem with a firearm ban at Pitt where the campus is integrated into the Oakland section of the city and a ban would infringe on the entire public, not just Pitt students, faculty and employees.
@Stephen
PA has a state system of higher education which runs, if memory serves me right – 14 universities. The system also partially funds Pitt, Temple, Penn State, and I believe Lincoln. Point Park is not part of the PA state system of higher education.
Stephen,
The “just one drop” concept for enforcing carry rights on private property like university’s is a horrible model to use. Flip it around. I am not a fan of .gov funding but there are few large institutions that don’t receive public money in some form or another.
Think of all the nanny-state BS you hate. Now envision it being enforced almost everywhere.
“Real” publically funded and state-chartered schools are fair game but the solution to a basically private university’s ban policy, like that of a private restaurant or other business, is simply to not go there and/or to leave if they ask you to to avoid a trespassing charge.
Gun rights don’t mean anything long term if private property rights aren’t respected. Alternately, the day we willingly give the .gov anything closer to a “just one drop” access to private property is the day we will need to exercise our gun rights large scale.
Matthew, I absolutely understand what you’re saying and agree. I’m not trying to say that if they receive “one drop” then they should be treated the same as state schools.
At the same time, private schools (in Texas at least) like to claim to be private and not comply when it suits them, but continue to accept funds from local, state, and federal sources. Just a couple of examples from Baylor (not to pick on them, but they’re a large, well known private university in Texas).
“The new research park is a collaboration between Baylor University, Texas State Technical College, McLennan Community College, McLennan County, the City of Waco, the City of Bellmead, Waco-McLennan County Development Corporation, Bellmead Economic Development Corporation, Waco Industrial Foundation, Heat of Texas Council of Governments and the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce…….Funding for the project came from a partnership between the Baylor Board of Regents and the Texas State legislature, which provided funding to TSTC for “capital expenditures and renovations for collaborative research projects.” Each group provided $10 million to make the first phase of this project a reality. Phase I is expected to be completed in 15 to 18 months.” (source:http://www.baylor.edu/lariat/news.php?action=story&story=63592)
Or this news article: (http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/8747692.html) stating Baylor is on target to receive 500,000 in federal funding.
I guess I have a hard time calling a place truly private when its busy receiving state funds to expand like Baylor is. If they want an exemption to campus carry for their schools, that’s fine. If they stop accepting money from the state of Texas.
The feds and state govts have used the “you’re using our money so play by our rules” argument to beat us over the head, true. I just get frustrated by someone with one hand out for my tax money to develop their private university, and the other hand is busy holding a sign saying “stay out of my private business”. Really?
Public or private, what’s the difference when you are talking about your RIGHTS.
Does any of your other rights end at a property line? Do the property owners have the right to detain, search you, and seize anything you have because you’re standing on their property?
Are you not allowed to speak your mind because of being on personal property at the time?
Why should you have to give up your rights just because you are on private property?
Private property is still part of the State, and a license to carry issued by that State should be valid anywhere within that State. (It should be valid in any State in my opinion just like your driver’s license, but that’s another matter)
Yes, private property owners have the right to detain you if you are unwelcome on their property. In fact, let’s outline what would happen should someone cross a line on our private property without permission (namely, the front or back door). We’re allowed to use reasonable force to defend from our private property or remove someone from it. In the case of this building on private property, that’s likely to involve a couple of 9mm responses to anything someone might be trying to spout. Private property lines exist, and you must obey them. Who owns them may determine what kind of force they may use to remove you, but they are all within their rights to call the police and report you as a trespasser if you refuse to leave.
Zermoid,
You do have the right to defend yourself wherever you have the right to be, but there is no right to be on another’s private property.
You can enter only at their invitation and remain only at their sufference. If they make a condition of your entry not bearing arms then you have only two honeorable choices; comply with their demands or do not enter.
There is no “third way” that does not involve either destroying the entire concept of private property or making yourself a liar by saying you will abide by the wishes of others and then not doing so.
I’m not really a Kantian but once you start treating the others as mere means to your end, you are perilously close to having the same treatment applied to you.
If that’s okay, how soon can we schedule the first annual no-invitation necessary, naked, gay rights / pro-Phelps, flag and Koran burning party at Zermoid’s house??
@Zermoid
How about I come to your house, stake out in your front yard with pro gay marriage, pro radical Islam, and anti gun signs. Then when you try and chase me off your property I draw a gun and tell you it’s my right, protected by the constitution , to says these things?
See, it doesn’t work for you does it? It doesn’t work for two reasons, the Constitution only protects your from the government infringing on your rights, and two, the constitution and your rights don’t extent onto private property.