Law prof sues university over concealed-carry ban
An associate law professor has filed suit against the University of Missouri, contending that its ban on having firearms on campus contradicts a new state constitutional provision.
Royce de R. Barondes, who teaches a class on firearms law, seeks a court order declaring that the ban is unconstitutional under an amendment approved by state voters last year. It says that courts must apply strict scrutiny to laws restricting the possession of firearms and ammunition, according to the Columbia Daily Tribune and the Columbia Missourian.
The Cole County Circuit Court complaint (PDF) also alleges that the school’s policy violates the Second and Fourteenth amendments of the U.S. Constitution by prohibiting the prof, who has a concealed-carry license, from keeping a gun on his person or in his vehicle.
The complaint says that the firearms ban impacts adversely on the prof’s right to protect himself. Attorney Jennifer Bukowsky, who represents him in the case, cited a fatal university-related shooting incident earlier this year in which, she says, a woman’s pistol helped prevent a worse situation, KMIZ reports.
Mark Adair, who authorities say was responsible for multiple attacks on women in other locations earlier the same day, was fatally shot by police in an on-campus parking garage in April. This was determined to be a justified shooting after Adair pointed a gun at police.
“What was not reported at the time, which I found out from a source and later confirmed through a sunshine request, is that the woman in her car in the parking lot at Moser’s grocery store who was attacked, she was able to get away by pulling out her handgun out of her purse,” Bukowsky told the station. “And had she not done that, she might not have been able to live to report his whereabouts to authorities. They may not have been able to track him down in time to save those girls in the parking garage at the university.”
Under current university policy, individuals are not allowed to have guns in the parking garage, she said.
