GRNC Alert 5-2-13: Will UNC Opposition Kill Campus Carry?

Bill now calendared for Monday: Take action now to keep restaurant/campus carry moving!

For the second time, yesterday, HB 937, containing restaurant carry, campus gun storage, carry in assemblies of people and other pro-gun measures, got pulled from the calendar, ostensibly because fiscal and incarceration notes were not yet ready.

Frankly, that doesn’t make sense. Such notes should have been prepared when the bill was in committee, not at this late date. And House leadership’s assertions notwithstanding, the delays coincide exactly with opposition to the bill by University of North Carolina president Tom Ross, UNC Wilmington Chancellor Gary Miller, lobbyists for NC State University (yes, NCSU is part of the UNC system) and most recently UNC Greensboro Chancellor Linda Brady (and perhaps others). The two things might be unrelated, but frankly, with crossover deadline approaching, we can’t take the chance.

Below is the open letter from GRNC President Paul Valone to UNC President Tom Ross. Similar letters have gone out from representatives of Students for Concealed Carry, the national organization for which has become involved in helping to pass HB 937.

Additional note: Rep. Bob Steinburg (R-Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell), who was listed among legislators who needed to hear from you on a previous alert, notes that although he introduced a weakening amendment to campus carry in committee, in which he sought to address the problem of vehicle break-ins by requiring guns to be kept in locked compartments within vehicles, he otherwise voted in favor of the bill. (The amendment was opposed by bill sponsors and failed.) He also notes that he does *not* plan to reintroduce the same amendment on the floor.

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED!

NO MONEY FOR UNC!

Since UNC President Tom Ross sees fit to attack your right to self defense, it is time to remind him that you pay his salary, not only through taxes, but also by donations, particularly from alumni. So it’s time to deliver a message: NO MONEY FOR UNC. For as long as they continue to oppose the bill, we want you to tell university chancellors, alumni associations and others that you cannot financially support a college that does not support your rights. Important note: Many people do not realize that NC State University is part of the UNC system. It is.

•    IMMEDIATELY EMAIL & CALL UNIVERSITY CHANCELLORS: Particularly if you are a student, alumni or parent of a student, contact the chancellor and deliver the message below. To find email addresses for chancellors, CLICK HERE or go to: http://www.northcarolina.edu/campus_profiles/chancellors.php

•    IMMEDIATELY EMAIL & CALL UNC PRESIDENT TOM ROSS: Unfortunately, we have been unable to locate an address for Ross, but his chief of staff, Kevin M. FitzGerald, who is available at: 919-962-1591 and kmfitzgerald@northcarolina.edu

•    CONTACT YOUR ALUMNI ASSOCIATION: Let them know your displeasure and your intent.

DELIVER THIS MESSAGE

Dear Chancellor:

Whether University of North Carolina President Tom Ross chooses to admit it or not, violent crime pervades UNC campuses. Given a rape, a knifepoint robbery and an assault within a single week, NC State University in particular seems to be a war zone.

Indeed, lobbyists for North Carolina State University and its chief of police testified to the North Carolina Judiciary A Subcommittee against House Bill 937, which would allow concealed handgun permit-holders to store guns in locked vehicles, just hours before the student was raped outside the NCSU Free Expression Tunnel.

Yet Mr. Ross says HB 937 “would increase the risk to public safety and hamper our ability to protect not only our students, staff and faculty, but also campus visitors.” Is rape your idea of “protection,” chancellor? What about the murder of UNC Chapel Hill student Eve Carson, shot five times after being kidnapped. Was she too adequately “protected?”

UNC Wilmington Chancellor Garry Miller says: “The idea of people having the time and capacity to retreat to their vehicles to arm themselves during a threat has very little chance of occurring”. Yet that is exactly what stopped shooting rampages at Appalachian School of Law and Pearl High School in Mississippi when student Tracy Bridges and assistant principal Joel Myrick, respectively, confronted shooters with guns retrieved from vehicles.

Criminals and violent sociopaths are drawn to ostensibly “gun free” zones: Controlled, multivariate studies by John R. Lott, William Landes and others have determined that concealed handgun laws are effective deterrents to murder, rape and aggravated assault. Indeed, Lott notes that of the mass shootings which have taken place in the United States since 1950, all but two occurred in places where guns are prohibited.

Moreover, visitors, students and faculty who live off campus are required to remain unprotected not only on campus, but elsewhere unless they choose to park at an often distant off-campus location before traversing it.

Regretfully, I will be unable to provide financial support for any university or other part of the University of North Carolina system until it reverses its position on a bill which deals not only with guns, but with the basic right to self-protection.

Respectfully,

Open letter to UNC President Tom Ross

To: Thomas W. Ross, President, The University of North Carolina

From: F. Paul Valone, President, Grass Roots North Carolina

Re: Your recent comments on House Bill 937, “Amend Various Firearms Laws”

Dear Mr. Ross:

WRAL-TV yesterday quoted you as saying that provisions in House Bill 937 (“Amend Various Firearms Laws”), and particularly its provision allowing concealed handgun permit-holders to keep firearms in locked vehicles on college campuses would “increase the risk to public safety and hamper our ability to protect not only our students, staff and faculty, but also campus visitors.”

Perhaps your view from the Ivory Tower is obstructed, Mr. Ross, so allow me to describe the landscape: The University of North Carolina is doing a woefully inadequate job of protecting its students, staff, faculty and visitors. In fact, just a few hours after your representatives testified to the North Carolina House Judiciary A Subcommittee in opposition to the bill, one of your students was raped outside North Carolina State University’s Free Expression Tunnel.

Is that your idea of “protection?”

What about the student who, two days later, was robbed at knife point in the parking deck of the Reynolds Coliseum?

Is that your idea of “protection?”

I am advised that over the past five months, NCSU students have received six “WolfAlerts” for such crimes. Indeed, my own son, a student at NCSU until last year, witnessed police taking down an armed robber outside the window of his class room.

Is that your idea of “protection?”

What about Eve Carson, the UNC Chapel Hill student kidnapped, robbed and brutally murdered?

Is that your idea of “protection?”

These crimes are but a tiny sample of the victimization going on every day in the university system you direct — a university system in which victims are prohibited from protecting themselves, instead forced to rely on police who generally arrive in time to interview victims, gather evidence and fill out police reports.

That you can’t protect students and faculty from rape and murder isn’t your fault. Police have neither the ability nor the legal obligation to protect individuals from violent crime. I don’t blame you for that.

But I blame you for the arrogance of claiming you can.

By the admission of NCSU police chief Jack Moorman, testifying to the committee, a large part of the reason for opposing the measure is that allowing firearms on campus might force campus police responding to crimes to ascertain the intent of those they encounter.

Really? Is it your position, sir, that students should be victimized for the convenience of law enforcement? After all, identification is a problem law enforcement officers elsewhere manage to solve every day.

Who are you to say that lawmakers shouldn’t pass rational legislation to deter violent crime? Controlled, multi-variate studies by John R. Lott, William Landes and others have demonstrated that concealed handgun laws deter murder, rape and aggravated assault.

Who are you to say that my son, a concealed handgun permit-holder who has proven himself sane, sober and law-abiding, should be disarmed not only on campus, but in travels to and from campus?

And most importantly, who are you to tell your students, faculty and visitors they can’t exercise their natural right to self-protection against violent predation?

I can tell you who you aren’t: You aren’t a person who can defend them, and you aren’t a person who should dictate their rights.

Respectfully,

F. Paul Valone
President, Grass Roots North Carolina

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