When we talk about defending individual rights on campus, we tend to think about free speech, free association, and the right to be free from discrimination. Usually that's enough to get us all too confused to go any deeper (witness the recent California ruling saying that religious student groups may not discriminate when deciding who can be a member--and the manner in which that ruling bumps up against strong legal precedent that yes, indeed, they may do just that).

But as thorny as that one may be (I don't personally think it's thorny at all--and neither does FIRE), it doesn't even begin to approach what is fast becoming a new frontier in the struggle to ensure that public campuses respect individual rights: guns.

We've had enough vigilante shootings on campus in recent years to give this one a real resonance. And here's the latest example of how it's shaping up in the news:

Many colleges bar people from bringing guns onto campus, but that position continues to be attacked by politicians.

In Utah, the University of Utah in 2007 lost a lengthy legal fight to ban guns from its campus. Now the issue is getting attention in Oregon, following the suspension of a student from Western Oregon University. The student admits to carrying a gun, but notes that he has a concealed weapon permit from the state. The university maintains that state law also gives the public higher education system the right to ban guns from its campuses--regardless of whether gun owners have a permit. With backing from Republican state legislators, the student says that the permit laws should trump the university's view of the issue.

The student--Jeffrey L. Maxwell--could not be reached. But he told the Albany Democrat-Herald that the suspension followed an incident in which campus police were looking for a suspicious person on campus. Before determining that Maxwell, a Marine Corps veteran, was not that person, they asked him if he had any weapons and he answered truthfully that he was carrying a loaded pistol. While the university has declined to discuss the specifics of his punishment, Maxwell has told local reporters that he was suspended until the fall and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation and to write a paper on obeying the law and the impact of guns on campus.

Oregon's administrative statutes specifically state that guns are barred from public colleges (as well as elementary and secondary schools) unless specifically authorized by institutional officials. A spokeswoman for the Oregon University System said that officials there couldn't comment on Maxwell, but that the system has viewed its gun ban as based directly on Oregon law.

The case become a rallying cry of sorts for gun supporters in Oregon. The Democrat-Herald has invoked Virginia Tech to back Maxwell. "At Virginia Tech and elsewhere, rules like the ones enforced by the university system have not prevented gun violence but left people on campus more vulnerable to mass murderers," said an editorial in the paper.

A letter from Bruce Hanna, Republican leader of the Oregon House of Representatives, to the university system called its policies "out of line" and said that the state's public universities are ignoring the rights of holders of concealed weapons permits.

While much of the publicity in the state has come from critics of the university policies, others defend them.

Shawn Alford, president of Ceasefire Oregon, a group that favors gun control, said that universities "have a right and obligation to keep students and faculty safe." Alford noted that there is a long-standing tradition of heightened regulation of guns in certain places, even if states permit gun possession generally.

For example, in last year's Supreme Court decision striking down a District of Columbia gun control law as violating the Second Amendment, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: "[N]othing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."

The problem:

"Oregon's administrative statutes specifically state that guns are barred from public colleges (as well as elementary and secondary schools) unless specifically authorized by institutional officials."

Is not true. ORS 166.370 and ORS 166.70 are what is relevant in this case. First, he broke no Oregon statute:

"166.370 Possession of firearm or dangerous weapon in public building or court facility; exceptions; discharging firearm at school. (1) Any person who intentionally possesses a loaded or unloaded firearm or any other instrument used as a dangerous weapon, while in or on a public building, shall upon conviction be guilty of a Class C felony. (2) (a) Except as otherwise provided in paragraph (b) of this subsection, a person who intentionally possesses: ... (3) Subsection (1) of this section does not apply to: ... (d) A person who is licensed under ORS 166.291 and 166.292 to carry a concealed handgun."

Second, WOU's "policy" is in violation of state law:

"166.170 State preemption. (1) Except as expressly authorized by state statute, the authority to regulate in any matter whatsoever the sale, acquisition, transfer, ownership, possession, storage, transportation or use of firearms or any element relating to firearms and components thereof, including ammunition, is vested solely in the Legislative Assembly."

In the simplest of terms, WOU had no right to arrest Maxwell as he was violating no law and as a public institution, they had no right to create a policy that violates Oregon law.

Please, read Oregon gun laws a little bit before you make such statements. There *is* a reason the DA did not press charges against the student.

We have FIRE to thank for that awareness. What I wonder is -- will FIRE be taking up Second Amendment issues with the same libertarian fervor that it defends the First Amendment? If they won't, will anyone?

Someone needs to. This one is by definition a lot tougher than fighting speech codes. It's not as amenable to arguments about the purpose of the university--the value of free inquiry, the importance of dissent and debate, and so on. These are all killer arguments for repealing speech codes. They appeal not only to the law, but also to the principles of the educational enterprise. That makes them very powerful indeed.

Self-defense is a different sort of thing entirely. There is no academic argument for letting people carry guns on campus; there is only a legal argument about how far, from one state to the next, the right to carry may or may not be restricted. I am very much not a lawyer (obviously) -- so would welcome those who are to elaborate and clarify on this in the comments.

I do think the issue of guns on campus is heating up, though, and I do think we need to have this discussion from as many informed angles as possible. I am alive to the concerns people have about students and faculty members packing on campus. But I am also alive to the basic issue of individual rights. And while gun laws vary by state, it may still be possible to draw an analogy, at least provisionally, between kinds of illegitimate campus exceptionalism.

We accept now, as a truism, that students and faculty do not have the right not to be offended--no matter what a speech code might say to the contrary. Can we also say that students and faculty do not have the right not to be in the presence of a person exercising his right to carry a concealed weapon?

Here's the thing. Depending on where you live, you may well be in the presence of concealed weapons all the time. You just don't know it. In Oregon, for example, people drive with them in their cars, they carry them on walks in the woods, they have them on their persons when shopping, running errands. They are exercising their rights--and they don't have to tell you one word about it. If that creeps you out, that's probably a register of your own lack of familiarity with gun laws, gun use, and the enormously careful and responsible culture that exists in areas of the country where private citizens carry as a matter of course.

Do I carry? No. But I recognize that I should. I live in an impoverished rural area with minimal emergency support. You can't count on instant response if you dial 911. There's a lot of meth around, not to mention cougars and so on, and things happen.

There is a strong culture of personal responsibility in the area--many people carry, and you get used to not knowing who is and who isn't. You also get used to how that translates into a real communal respect for guns. People don't screw around with them. They take their licenses seriously, and they maintain their skills. They do it so that they will never have a moment when they or a loved one is in imminent danger--and they are powerless to do anything about it. It's proactive and preventive, and part of being accountable to yourself and your family. They all know that the last thing they ever want to have to do is shoot; the training they go through stresses just how high the bar is for getting a legal pass if they do shoot someone. They carry because the alternative is to be a sitting duck.

I know how alien that mentality is in urban areas, and in places like New York and California. But it's important for the people who reflexively oppose guns while knowing nothing about them to think a little bit harder about what they mean, about what role they play in the lives of those who do carry responsibly, and about regional variation in culture and in levels of police coverage and responsiveness. All of that should be part of the discussion I hope we will soon begin to have about guns on campus.

I mentioned that I don't carry. But I have shot a few times. It's jarring and unsettling at first, no question about it. But once that passes, it does sink in that knowing how to handle a gun is one of the basic responsibilities of adult life. You can hope like hell that you never have to use that knowledge. But if you don't have at least basic familiarity with guns, you are potentially gambling your own life, not to mention those of your family members.

UPDATE 2/18: Maxwell is suing.