Waves were made in the gun community with a claim that a university is trying to stop a student from starting a Second Amendment-themed club, but further review shows that the student may not have expressed his intent or the situation clearly.
As someone who has been through the process before, it’s incredibly important to come up with a clear plan before approaching officials about something like this. According to the school, the student said he wanted a student group to organize a change in their gun policy. They didn’t tell him he couldn’t do that, but that a simple goal like that didn’t fit the requirements for an official school group that may be eligible for funding. That’s a perfectly legitimate response from the school, if that’s the case.
Now, if he wanted to start a Second Amendment group that does a wide variety of activities and may also have a campaign to change the school policy, that’s a very different request. Knowing the difference between those two requests will make a difference between denial and approval – unless there is real bias going on.
Clearly, there are cases of extreme anti-gun bias in academia, so it’s not out of the question that there is a problem. However, I find it telling that the latest reports say the student admitted he really didn’t know about the process of starting a club and he plans to work on the statement of intent for the group. That tells me that the school’s defense is likely accurate.
One thing I love about this blog is that you and Sebastian don’t often fly off the handle and make claims that a minor incident is a huge affair of treason against America, baseball, and apple pie. Thank you, and please continue to be as levelheaded and as skeptical of early reports as you have been.
Camada day is treason against America, baseball, and apple pie. Happy Canada day, you heathen communist!
Funny coming from the man descended from Canadians. :p
When I was in college, I ended up getting involved with the arm of student government that reviewed and approved club Constitutions. I ended up writing several Constitutions, including one for a Math club. (The others, including “Intelligence”, “Bird Watchers”, “Violin”, weren’t as serious; indeed, “Bird Watchers” was a front for the “Intelligence” club…)
The process wasn’t that difficult, and because of certain creativity on my part, parts of the Constitution for the Math club were removed, so I’m well aware that you need to follow the guidelines of a club, and aware that it could take a couple of iterations before you get things right!
Since ECPI is a private, for-profit school… I think they have a significantly wider leeway to limit what can and cannot be done on their campus.
But, I do not know if they accept federal funding to operate or if that matters… Or if federal student aid makes it matter either…
I attended a Southern Military college. We carried firearms during drill twice a week and again every Friday afternoon for parades.