After concealed weapons allowed, crime dropped
Study: CSU safer since 2003
by Jim Sojourner
The Rocky Mountain Collegian
Kirsten Silveira
The Rocky Mountain Collegian
CSU has been a safer place since late 2003, one CSU student found, when it decided to allow the university community to carry concealed weapons on campus –– a policy that could be holstered next Tuesday.
According to a report written by senior history major Brady Allen contesting the CSU System Board of Governors’ December decision to ban concealed weapons on campus, violent crime rates at CSU have declined since 2003. And although he could not prove a direct correlation between concealed carry and good campus safety, Allen said the decreasing crime rate speaks for itself.
“You can’t argue with it. The last six years have been the safest in CSU history and concealed carry is part of that,” Allen, who is not affiliated with any lobbyist or gun advocacy group, said.
The crime statistics analysis is just one part of Allen’s 12-page research document refuting the International
Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators’ position statement that the BOG used to justify its resolution ordering CSU President Tony Frank and CSU-Pueblo President Joe Garcia to draft weapons policies banning guns on campus by its next board meeting on Tuesday.
The order came after CSU’s Public Safety Team recommended the university ban weapons in the years following the deadly Virginia Tech and University of Northern Illinois shootings.
The policy mandate has been the subject of strife for gun advocates across the state, including Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden, who said he would not help enforce any weapons ban at CSU, and the Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, which said it will sue CSU if a ban goes into effect.
Concerned with the amount of what he called bad information on both sides of the argument, Allen said he set out to do his own research into the effects of concealed carry on college campuses. The endeavor ultimately led him to discover misinformation in the IACLEA’s position statement, he said.
“It’s so much easier if you stick to the facts, and right now, none that I was able to find support a public safety threat,” Allen said.
The IACLEA is a board comprised of officers and public safety officials from 15 colleges and universities. According to its Web site, it also represents about 1,200 educational institutions worldwide. In 2008, it released a position statement urging public policy makers to adopt policies banning concealed weapons on college campuses.
Allen forwarded his findings to the BOG earlier this month, but said it never replied. In a phone interview, the BOG’s chief spokesperson Michele McKinney said the board has not read Allen’s document.
She said a copy of Allen’s study has been forwarded to the BOG’s secretary, but said she couldn’t say whether or not the document would be part of the packet given to the board to review before its upcoming meeting.
“The board respects the differing views, and understand that those views will not go away,” McKinney said. “Their mind is set.”
In its statement “Concealed Carrying of Firearms Proposals on College Campuses,” the IACLEA said allowing concealed carry on campuses is likely to lead to more crime investigations involving firearms, more shooting incidents and ultimately more deaths from guns –– concerns McKinney said the BOG shared after hearing the university’s Public Safety Committee’s findings.
“(The board came to an) independent conclusion that weapons on campus, concealed or not, increase the risk and compromise the safety of the individuals the board is charged with protecting,” she said, adding that the BOG did listen to and engage in dialogue with students.
But Allen said most of the facts presented in the IACLEA’s position statement have little relevance to CSU’s situation because many of the studies it cites have to do with illegal weapons, not legal concealed carries, and underestimate the number of students capable of carrying a concealed weapon.
“It’s stuff that doesn’t apply, but they’re using it to justify a policy,” Allen said.
The IACLEA’s position states that, due to age limits requiring handgun owners to be 21 or older, only a small percentage of college students are eligible to carry firearms, negating their cross-campus self-defense potential.
Allen said CSU’s Fact Book lists a total student enrollment of more than 25,000 students, 48 percent of which –– or more than 13,000 –– are at least 21.
The IACLEA also cites two studies by Harvard professor of health policy David Hemenway, in which Hemenway and two colleagues found that gun-owning students often engage in excessive recreational drinking and then participate in risky activities including drunk driving, destroying property and other illegal behavior.
Allen said the surveys Hemenway’s studies are based on were conducted when concealed carry was not legal on college campuses and, more importantly, refer to illegal weapon ownership and the behavior of illegal gun owners.
Marlon Lynch, president of IACLEA, did not return phone calls or e-mails from the Collegian regarding the position statement or Allen’s findings.
Colorado doesn’t release any crime records concerning concealed carry, Allen said, so he instead looked at states that do have information publicly available such as Texas and Florida.
Texas’s concealed carry permit holders accounted for just 0.2 percent of the state’s criminal convictions –– 0.4 percent of the murder convictions –– over an 11-year span. Florida also had the same rate of concealed carrier criminal conviction over a 21-year period.
Bill Cates, a concealed weapon permit holder, gun etiquette course teacher and manager of Rocky Mountain Shooting Supply, said getting a concealed carry permit is easy, unless you have any kind of criminal record.
The application form, he said, asks a series of 14 yes-or-no questions that deal with everything from alcohol abuse to restraining orders and criminal offenses to mental health issues. If any of the applicant’s answers call into question their ability to responsibly carry a weapon, the request is denied. If the applicant lies, that alone is a felony, he said.
The Larimer County Sheriff regulates all permit requests and requires all applicants take an eight- to 10-hour course in gun etiquette like the one Cates teaches.
“There’s a lot of self-discrimination I can do, and if I don’t think everything’s right, I won’t pass them,” Cates said, adding that if students miss more than five questions on the final exam they fail the course, as mandated by the National Rifle Association.
And, if a concealed carry permit holder is convicted of even certain misdemeanors, such as domestic violence, the permit is revoked.
Furthermore, Allen said he found that, since 1995 when the CSU Police Department began keeping records of crime rates on campus, there have been no shootings involving concealed carry permit holders at CSU.
“To me, a firearm is a hammer, a band saw. Anybody who has taken a shop class knows the dangers involved in using the tools. The same goes for a gun,” Allen said.
For the complete text of Allen’s research, the IACLEA position statement and the BOG resolution to ban concealed carry on campus, go to Collegian.com.
Senior Reporter Kirsten Silveira and Projects Editor Jim Sojourner can be reached at news@collegian.com.
Please be respectful to others when commenting on our comment board. Comments that are decided to be overly offensive, off topic, derrogatory or unnecessarily cruel in nature will be erased.
All fields are required. Your email address will not be published.
recently added comments
 |
Arvensis on Current peace talks are threatened by Zionism (71) |
|
Sarah on Ramtalk (1) |
|
Susan LaBarge on Cartoon at Lyric sings last note (1) |
| 03/11/2010 |
How do you Chatroulette? |
| 03/04/2010 |
Binary Boys: Tecnology does not hate you |
collegian on facebook
collegian on twitter
rss feeds
email newsletter
The comments posted on this board are monitored, but we can not be held responsible for what others say.
Stu Strickler
02-17-10
8:13 AM
Brady Allen is correct. There has been a drop in crime everywhere that has concealed carry.
The recent murders on a college campus by a professor, prove that you can’t prevent insane people from killing people. That college had a No Weapons policy. Didn’t work very well did it?
How many people must be murdered in these Gun Free Zones before people wake up and realize that these no gun policies are stupid?
uh...
02-17-10
8:54 AM
Uh… correlation does not equal causation Collegian.
Not saying I support a ban on concealed carry, but there probably are many other factors that play into CSU’s low crime rate, Fort Collins’ incredibly low crime rate for starters.
A guy
02-17-10
9:01 AM
I think this is summed up well at sqcomic.com – see the Jan 21, 2010 strip.
Where are the docs?
02-17-10
9:06 AM
Where are the links for the documents?
“For the complete text of Allen’s research, the IACLEA position statement and the BOG resolution to ban concealed carry on campus, go to Collegian.com.”
CSU, where we want to be like all the other universities
02-17-10
9:16 AM
“The IACLEA is a board comprised of officers and public safety officials from 15 colleges and universities.”
How many people on the CSU Public Safety Team will be allowed to carry I wonder?
Isn’t it great when we let the police decide that the only people who can have guns are the police? How convenient for them…
Allen
02-17-10
9:17 AM
“Uh… correlation does not equal causation Collegian.
Not saying I support a ban on concealed carry, but there probably are many other factors that play into CSU’s low crime rate, Fort Collins’ incredibly low crime rate for starters.”
I agree and that is what is stated in my full study (which will hopefully get attached shortly), but to address other issues, Ft Collins crime rates during the same time period stayed the same, Larimer County rates increased. The total drop in crimes against persons at CSU after 2003 is 44% per 10,000 students.
Bruning for Sheriff
02-17-10
10:48 AM
Bruning stands up for your 2nd Amendment rights! The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall NOT be infringed — period! Support Carl Bruning as your Constitutional Sheriff!
“I will NEVER enter concealed-carry permit holders in any government computer database!”
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Carl-Bruning-for-Constitutional-Sheriff-in-Larimer-County-Colorado/288284675755
http://carlbruning.com/
Bruning for Sheriff
02-17-10
10:51 AM
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Carl-Bruning-for-Constitutional-Sheriff-in-Larimer-County-Colorado/288284675755
http://carlbruning.com/
We need a “Constitutional Sheriff” in Larimer County. I will defend the American Dream and your rights to life, liberty, property, firearms, and freedom. Thanks for supporting Liberty!
John
02-17-10
11:00 AM
After getting an undergraduate and a graduate degree at CSU, I can’t believe that the campus administration has decided to go politically correct. CSU is about science, if they want to be politically correct at the expense of science, they need to leave CSU and work for CU-Boulder.
Brady Allen is doing what the administration should be doing. He is analyzing the role of concealed carry scientifically.
The CSU administration is using one piece of gun control propeganda to make policy. I think it is a very sad statement on the state of CSU.
By the way, there was a concealed carry permit holder in the room next to the Alabama shooting. However, since she was a law abiding citizen, she didn’t carry her weapon onto the campus.
Did you know that Virginia Tech used to be Virgina’s public military academy? Many of the students at VT are ROTC or ex-military. If those highly qualified individuals had been allowed to be armed that day, the outcome of the Virgina Tech incident would’ve been very different. The same applies to the Fort Hood shooting.
Banning guns only bans honest people from carrying them. I can’t help but notice that all of these high-profile “mass shootings” seem to happen in “gun free zones”.
The only logical reason I can see for banning concealed carry is the large proportion of students under 21. However, the CSU administration would also need to ban alcohol from all campus functions and enforce alcohol possession laws as vigorously as firearm possession.
prove it
02-17-10
12:14 PM
“You can’t argue with it. The last six years have been the safest in CSU history and concealed carry is part of that,” Allen, who is not affiliated with any lobbyist or gun advocacy group, said.
Prove that concealed carry is part of that. I’m all for rational policy, but as others have stated so far all you’ve got is correlational data. Maybe the authors have somehow misquoted or misrepresented your work, but if so this should be cleared up.
“Ft Collins crime rates during the same time period stayed the same, Larimer County rates increased.”
This is a weird comparison. I’m assuming concealed carry is allowed in the greater city and the county. What is the crime rate in the city and county vs. that at CSU? A better comparison might be to other schools that have allowed concealed carry.
You need a way to test the theory that crime rates dropped as a result of concealed carry. Is there any record of crimes that have been prevented due to concealed carry on campus?
Yeah...but
02-17-10
12:25 PM
In a free society shouldn’t things like this be free from banning until proven conclusively harmful? It’s like the theory of innocent until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. Concealed carry shouldn’t be banned until it’s proven beyond all reasonable doubt that it’s harmful. Asking for proof that concealed carry is beneficial is like asking someone to prove they’re innocent just because they were accused of a crime.
no you prove it hasn't
02-17-10
12:35 PM
No you prove it hasn’t dropped the crime rate ! We have CC and a drop in crime you prove they are not linked. It’s working as it is and they want to change it, WHY !!
no you prove it hasn't
02-17-10
12:41 PM
While your at it explain ( like John said above ) Why are they not trying to ban drinking and cars on campus they cause much more death, injury, and problems ??
Allen
02-17-10
2:14 PM
Prove It…
Please read the attached article, I’m very specific when I say that I cannot assign a causal relationship to crime reduction and the presence of concealed carry. The issue is not whether CCW lowered crime, but whether it increased risk.
Paul P.
02-17-10
5:21 PM
Someone should check if their is an adverse impact to the cost of the libility insurance that the school holds when not having a ban in place. The arbitrary sense of enactment of this ban may dissolve once you discover an impetus was placed on the school, by their insurance provider, for the enactment of such a ban.
jim
02-17-10
6:01 PM
SO we have a BOG that says NO CCW. YET the CSUPD has this little memo they use as guidelines
Survival Strategies in The Event of an Active Shooter
Colorado State University Police Department
Department of Public Safety
THIS LITTLE TIDBIT is in there
SO The BOG and our New CSUPD Police Chief want us disarmed YET they suggest (in writing no less) as part of their CSUPD Survival Stragities. TO TAKE OUT THE SHOOTER
well to all you d^&(f&( on the BOG . i will be sending you my attorneys contact info. this way when you get hit with a lawsuit you will know who it is from.
enjoy your last term as a BOG.
as for Dr. Tony Frank We supported you to stay on as head of CSU, because you were up front and a straight shooter.
With this looming ban do you honestly feel we should support you as much as you have the law abiding students/staff here at CSU??
duder
02-17-10
7:17 PM
so CSU is about science, and CU isn’t? tell me, how many Nobel Prizes in the Sciences are on CU’s faculty? (four) Now, how many does CSU have? (zero)
CSU is good in the sciences, but nowhere NEAR CU, my friend.
duder
02-17-10
7:22 PM
re: law-abiding citizens.
John Hinckly Jr was a law abiding citizen before he shot Ronald Reagan. Larimer county’s concealed weapons permit process is a JOKE. It’s way too easy to get one! I’m absolutely certain that there are several loonies walking around with concealed weapons in our city.
Vinnie Morris
02-17-10
8:17 PM
The crux of the article is Brady’s response to the BOG. Not to the issue of Concealed Carry, meaning Brady didn’t write the column, so technically I think the proper criticism would be “Allen, correlation does not equal causation.” HOWEVER, I read Brady’s response before he submitted it, his comment was intended as response to the claim by the board of increased risk.
The board claims there an increased risk is present BECAUSE firearms are allowed on campus, however there has been a decrease in risk. Not that one caused the other, but that the BOG’s claim was erroneous in nature, not that firearms MADE campus safer, but that campus has been extremely safe while they were present.
Vinnie Morris
02-17-10
8:45 PM
“John Hinckly Jr was a law abiding citizen before he shot Ronald Reagan. Larimer county’s concealed weapons permit process is a JOKE. It’s way too easy to get one! I’m absolutely certain that there are several loonies walking around with concealed weapons in our city.”
This is true regardless of whether or not they have permits. Tangible objects cannot be controlled from being possessed by the unstable, the insane or CRIMINALS if they want to possess it. The CCW policy for Larimer County follows the Colorado statute. If you think licensing individuals screened by the elected county government, in accordance with state law through a federal background check is a flawed system, I challenge you to come up with a better system to replace it. Two states have no requirement for concealed carry, it’s simply legal for anyone to conceal a firearm. Personally this is the way I prefer it, but I’m sure you feel safer knowing the government is providing oversight.
Guy
02-18-10
12:45 AM
“John Hinckly Jr was a law abiding citizen before he shot Ronald Reagan. Larimer county’s concealed weapons permit process is a JOKE. It’s way too easy to get one! I’m absolutely certain that there are several loonies walking around with concealed weapons in our city.”
And I guarantee these loonies would be walking around with concealed guns whether or not they have a CCW permit. If someone wants to shoot up our campus, they are going to do it whether they have a CCW permit or not. However, odds are they are less likely to do it knowing there are students and faculty on campus with CCW permits that will shoot back.
Nola
02-18-10
10:20 AM
Thank you Brady Allen for the time and energy spent on your research.
BOG listen to students??? It is reported that Allen did not even get a reply from the BOG office that his research paper had been received.
Shame on the President of the IACLEA for not responding to the Collegian reporters. Not very professional.
BOG …… What are you doing? Common sense would indicate that the odds are that some would be alive today, if a law abiding (CCW) individual had been in the immediate area at the time of GUN FREE ZONE shootings. Consider a few like the shootings on Alabama Campus, Ft. Hood , Virginia Tech ..We will never know, but I think some would be here today if a guy or gal willing and capable of defending his or her self and others had been present in the first few seconds of the incidents.
BOG….. Rethink this….GUN FREE ZONE will not keep out the evil one…..Any of us could be in need of assistance in the future from a good law abiding (CCW) individual.
tanksoldier
02-18-10
1:54 PM
Even if we, for the sake of argument, assume there is no direct correlation between banning licensed concealed carry that fact would be irrelevant.
The RELEVANT fact is that there is also no evidence of causation between banning concealed carry and an INCREASE in campus safety.
Every single recent campus shooting has occurred on a campus where the carrying of firearms was prohibited. That prohibition saved no one. Banning guns from campus is “security theater”: a grand gesture intended to make everyone FEEL more safe… but which in reality does absolutely NOTHING to provide additional safety or security. In THIS particular case it goes further and actually reduces the security of those who have decided to take responsibility for themselves.
jimmy
02-18-10
3:57 PM
“so CSU is about science, and CU isn’t? tell me, how many Nobel Prizes in the Sciences are on CU’s faculty? (four) Now, how many does CSU have? (zero)
CSU is good in the sciences, but nowhere NEAR CU, my friend. “
Yassir Arafat won the Nobel Prize, so got to say I would be much happier if less faculty at my alma matter where associated with such a disgrace to humanity.
Your hasty generalization continue to only prove you utter stupidity. Clearly they both have their specialties and one is not “better” than the other… only an ignoramus like yourself would make such a blatantly ignorant assertion…Allen
02-18-10
4:51 PM
Duder,
I’ve got no problem comparing CSU and CU if you would like. In fact it’s a great comparison since the schools are close geographically (44 miles) and almost demographically identical (CU is 20% bigger on average). I looked at this comparison but didn’t include it in the study since I was not trying to prove that CCW lowered crime.
Since you want to make the comparison you are probably already aware then that since concealed carry has been permitted on CSU there has been an average of 47% less crimes against persons than at CU. Note that this is per 10,000 students so the population size doesn’t matter. I’m sure you also know that CU has seen no decrease in crimes against persons since CCW was banned? (18.7 per 10,000 for 1998-2002 and 17.4 per 10,000 for 2003-2008, a difference of 7% which is statistically insignificant, CSU rates were 16.6 and 9.24 respectively).
I cannot make the conclusion that CCW lowers crime, I simply do not have the information to support that. But if you want to make comparisons between which college has been safer CU-Boulder is not the answer.
I am currently working on a similar comparison of Utah public colleges to evaluate if they have seen similar safety records. It will be complete before the end of the semester.
Stu Strickler
02-18-10
5:16 PM
Thanks Allen for all your work and research.
Utah has concealed carry on campus and has not had a problem.
Mainer
02-19-10
3:36 PM
It strikes me odd how anti-gun people project the most negative presumptions about gun owners and CCW holders. If you knew someone who always assumed the most heinous and violent use of an object you’d wonder about their stability. Say a friend claimed that anyone who owned a circular saw would use it to attack their spouse in a fit of rage. Or that only psychopaths own kitchen knives, because they’ll get drunk and stab the neighbor they don’t like. Or cars are only good for running over people. You’d worry about that person’s mental state, not saws, knives and cars. So when someone argues against guns on the theory that people will obviously be stupid and irresponsible, why do we give that argument any weight?It says more about the person projecting their own mental state, than any provable fact about guns, gun owners or CCW.
Michelle
02-19-10
4:06 PM
If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.
Kevin C
02-21-10
3:42 PM
I hope the BOG gets some semblance of a positive IQ before they make a decision, given the fact they have patently ignored the students of CSU I’m not holding my breath. Sadly the only way to get the BOG to fix it’s anal-cranial inversion will be in the courtroom, or to withdraw from the school and move to Utah.
Erik S.
02-21-10
9:43 PM
For those that wanted to see some data, here are some graphs. You will see that crime rates plummet across the board after 2003—the year CCW became legal at CSU.
http://www.soderstrome.com/2009/12/07/csu-crime-rate-in-pictures/
GunnarJAJ
02-26-10
4:41 PM
I’m not a student and don’t think I could get standing for a lawsuit – so which one of you 2nd Amendment-honoring Rams up there is going to step up to the plate?
Might want to check with RMGO to see if they’d help with the litigation, but someone needs to take this one all the way up. And when CSU’s ban gets smacked down, so would any other ban at any other campus in the state.
Craig Hawley
03-12-10
5:43 PM
Nicely put Gunnar.
I would not only sue , if i get hurt when my gun was denied me I would sue CSU and own the campus….
When you take away my God given right to self defense , you make your self legally responsible for my protection.
This is going to back fire on CSU big time…..