{"id":87615,"date":"2022-11-12T10:37:39","date_gmt":"2022-11-12T16:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=87615"},"modified":"2022-11-12T10:37:39","modified_gmt":"2022-11-12T16:37:39","slug":"87615","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=87615","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Michigan Supreme Court kicks campus carry ban case back to lower court<\/a><\/p>\n

A challenge to the University of Michigan\u2019s ban on firearms on campus is still underway after the state\u2019s Supreme Court sent the case back to the Court of Appeals with instructions to re-consider its ruling in light of the\u00a0Bruen\u00a0<\/em>decision.<\/p>\n

At first glance, this looks like a relatively easy case. The Supreme Court said that \u201cschools\u201d were among those few \u201csensitive places\u201d where there\u2019s a historical tradition of banning firearms, so that must mean that the university\u2019s gun ban is in-line with the Constitution, right? As Michigan Supreme Court Justice David Viviano wrote in a concurrence to the order sending\u00a0Wade v. University of Michigan\u00a0<\/em>back to the court of appeals, it\u2019s not nearly as\u00a0cut and dried<\/a>\u00a0an issue.<\/p>\n

To support its threshold analysis, the Court of Appeals relied on the statement in\u00a0Dist of Columbia v Heller, 554 US 570, 626-62<\/em>7 (2008), that the Second Amendment did not disturb \u201clongstanding prohibitions on . . . laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings . . . .\u201d In the present case, the Court of Appeals\u2019 entire \u201chistorical analysis\u201d was to examine one dictionary from 1828 to determine whether universities were considered \u201cschool[s]\u201d in 1868.<\/p>\n

Even if one concludes that the Court of Appeals reached the correct result, this paltry review of the main question is inadequate. Moreover, it is not at all apparent that Heller\u2019s brief discussion of sensitive places was intended to establish a rule that all entities historically known as \u201cschools\u201d could permissibly ban firearms, meaning the only question that would remain for future cases is whether the entity at issue was considered a \u201cschool.\u201d Nor is it even clear that the Court meant to include universities and colleges in its reference to \u201cschools,\u201d let alone to say that such locations can completely ban firearms. See Note,\u00a0Guns on Campus: Continuing Controversy, 38 J C & U L 663, 667-668 (2012)<\/em>\u00a0(noting that Heller did not address guns on university campuses or define \u201cschools\u201d to include higher education).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Viviano went on to describe two different areas of historical analysis that he\u2019d like to see from the appellate court. First, whether there were any similar regulations dealing with bearing arms on university and college campuses at the time the Second and Fourteenth Amendments were ratified. Viviano notes that in his own initial analysis he\u2019s found some laws that contain \u201cpartial restrictions\u201d, but none that come close to the complete ban in effect on the University of Michigan campus.<\/p>\n

The second line of historical analysis suggested by Viviano is whether or not traditional college campuses are even a good historical analogue for \u201clarge modern campuses like the University of Michigan\u2019s.\u201d Viviano wonders whether modern campuses are \u201cso dispersed and multifaceted that a total campus ban would now cover areas that historically would not have had any restrictions?\u201d<\/p>\n

The University of Michigan itself occupies nearly one-tenth of Ann Arbor. Many areas on campus, such as roadways, open areas, shopping districts, or restaurants, might not fit the \u201csensitive place\u201d model suggested by Heller\u2014they may instead be more historically analogous to other locations that did not have gun restrictions. And because the campus is so entwined with the surrounding community, the ban might also burden carrying rights on locations outside campus, as many individuals will regularly go from campus to off-campus environments, even in a single trip; because they cannot bring a gun on campus, they will not feasibly be able to bring the gun to the off-campus locations either.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s an excellent point, and one that strikes at the heart of several of the post-Bruen\u00a0<\/em>restrictions on the right to carry that we\u2019ve seen implemented or introduced in blue states over the past four months. Bans on concealed carry in public transportation, for example, not only prevent those who rely on it from being able to bear arms while on a city bus or subway, but throughout the course of their daily routine as well.<\/p>\n

With the case going back to the court of appeals it will likely be several months before we get a decision, and Justice Viviano\u2019s concurrence suggests that upholding the U of M gun ban won\u2019t be as easy as gun control activists are hoping for. We\u2019ll keep an eye on this case for any future developments, but in the meantime Michigan gun owners should be aware that the ban remains in effect for the time being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michigan Supreme Court kicks campus carry ban case back to lower court A challenge to the University of Michigan\u2019s ban on firearms on campus is still underway after the state\u2019s Supreme Court sent the case back to the Court of Appeals with instructions to re-consider its ruling in light of the\u00a0Bruen\u00a0decision. At first glance, this … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,59,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courts","category-education-schools","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87616,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87615\/revisions\/87616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}