DRIVETIME MAHATMA

OK to go by campus with gun?

— Greetings Mahatma: When driving with a concealed-weapon license and a weapon in your vehicle, sometimes the public street passes through a public school campus or college. Is the driver in violation of the weapons ban for these areas so long as the vehicle stays on the public street?

  • Grizz Bear

Dear Grizz: We pitched this to two of the smartest guys in town - Bill Sadler of the Arkansas State Police and Aaron Sadler (no relation) of the Arkansas attorney general’s office.

They responded with copies of the applicable state laws and, for added context, two opinions of the attorney general.

After a careful reading of all the documents in question, here’s an answer:

Depends.

Note we said an answer; not the answer.

As Bill Sadler said: “There is no stock, one-size-fits all answer to the question.

Variables and circumstances witnessed or known to law enforcement officers dictate the appropriate response to each unique situation.”

One attorney general’s opinion in particular appears to best address the issue in the form of the question posed and the answer given. Careful readers know attorney general opinions are not the law, as either passed or adjudicated.

Let’s start with Arkansas Code Annotated 5-73-120.

Don’t carry a weapon, it says, with some exceptions.

An exception: “The person is in a motor vehicle and the person has a license to carry a concealed weapon.”

But that license doesn’t allow the carrying of a weapon into lots of places, according to Arkansas Code Annotated 5-73-306. Those places include “Any school, college, community college, or university campus building or event, unless for the purpose of participating in an authorized firearms related activity.”

Neither may you carry at any place where the person or entity controlling that place has put up signs prohibiting the carrying of a weapon.

Turn now to a 2003 attorney general opinion in which the question is asked: “Is it permissible to allow a concealed handgun permit carrier to carry a handgun onto a college campus but not into any of the campus buildings?”

The opinion says that under a narrow reading of 5-73-306, “licensed handgun carriers may carry handguns onto college and university campuses outside the buildings and when the carrier is not attending any college or university ‘event.’ Under this reading of the statutes, licensed handgun carriers may carry handguns onto college and university campuses, but may not carry the handgun into any college or university buildings, and may not carry the handgun to any college or university event (whether inside a building or not).”

But a reminder: “[C]olleges and universities have the authority to prohibit the carrying of concealed handguns onto any part of their property,” with proper signs. Surely all do. Surely.

Everybody clear on this now? Not The Mahatma, who remains bewildered.

Also unarmed.

Mahatma@arkansasonline.com

Arkansas, Pages 9 on 11/17/2012

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