Gun Control on College and University Campuses in the Wake of District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago

From the Constitution’s ratification in 1791 until its 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller decision, the Supreme Court had never held that a statute violated the Second Amendment. In invalidating Washington, D.C.’s extensive gun control prohibitions, which extended into the home, the Court declared that the Second Amendment protects citizens’ right to keep and bear arms in the home for the purpose of self-defense, so long as the weapon was of the kind used for such purposes at the founding. Moreover, in contrast to precedents going back to the nineteenth century, the Court stated this right was independent of any militia service by the gun user. In 2010 in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Court declared the Second Amendment was enforceable against the states. In practical terms this meant that as of 2010 a new protection was incorporated into the Bill of Rights. Thus, the Second Amendment joined its constitutional cousins including, for example, the First Amendment Free Speech and Religion Clauses, as rights limiting states’ power.This article examines the capacity of public colleges and universities to enact campus gun control policies affecting students, faculty, staff, and others, in light of the landmark Heller and McDonald decisions and judicial interpretations of those cases, along with state constitutional and statutory constraints on the ability of public college and university officials to act autonomously in fashioning campus gun control policies. Through this examination, this article derives principles to guide campus officials in the quest to fulfill their policy goals, while remaining faithful to citizens’ individual Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms,” and state limitations on campus institutional power. The article makes observations about areas in which campus officials should feel secure in enacting firearm controls, as well as where ambiguities remain, and concludes that the political branches of state government, rather than lofty constitutional principles, may determine who prevails in this contentious policy debate.