In July, UW buildings and school board meetings will no longer be gun-free zones
New law passes without Gordon's signature. Some areas will still be prohibited, including the Early Childhood Education Center, labs working with volatile materials and sporting events selling booze.
Governor Mark Gordon announced Thursday night he will allow a wide-ranging repeal of gun-free zones across the state to become law.
The legislation, which began life as House Bill 172, will allow anyone bearing a concealed carry permit to bring a firearm into the University of Wyoming student union, Old Main, classrooms and other campus locations where instructors and students gather to research, teach and learn.
It will also allow permit-holders to carry in local schools, like Laramie High, Laramie Middle, or Slade Elementary. The law also allows those “constitutionally” carrying to bring guns into “any meeting of a governmental entity,” such as school board meetings, city council meetings, and legislative hearings.
In characteristic fashion, Gordon expressed frustration with the law even as he refused to halt it.
“I am left to imagine this legislative session was never about ‘self-defense’ or a common sense effort to extend carry rights,” the governor alleges in a letter explaining his decision not to sign the bill. “More to the point, it was always about the legislature grabbing power. I find it interesting that this legislature’s vote was not so much about the sanctity of Second Amendment rights as it was who got to control them. Gun free zones are not repealed — they are now determined exclusively by the legislature.”
Last year, Gordon vetoed a similar bill, saying he opposed gun-free zones, but wanted to respect local control. In Thursday’s letter, he pointed to the local efforts made in the last 12 months to hammer out gun policies at UW, community colleges and a majority of the state’s school districts.
Gordon said these entities “heeded my call to action and took up the debate” and that HB172 is trampling over these “exercise[s] in local governance.”
“Such lack of regard for the principle of ‘government closest to the people’ so fundamental to our Republic is stunning,” Gordon writes. “Elections are impactful, and I recognize the overwhelming majority of this legislature opted to drop a political bomb. The final outcome of this legislation is not in doubt. It will become law.”
The bill goes into effect July 1.
UW’s doomed “exercise in local governance”
At UW, campus leaders undertook a wholesale reevaluation of the university’s “dangerous weapons” policy, which bans the carrying of firearms into campus facilities.
Concealed carry was once banned on campus grounds, but has been allowed ever since Republican activists challenged that portion of the ban by openly defying it, getting trespassed, and fighting the prohibition in court.
A campuswide survey revealed the overwhelming majority of faculty and staff and a majority of students supported keeping the facilities ban in place.
UW Board of Trustees discussions and other public forums highlighting the topic drew crowds of faculty, staff and students.
Those who spoke were often angry that campus leadership might acquiesce to lawmaker demands. They expressed concern for the safety of students in an environment where guns are allowed to proliferate, and voiced skepticism toward the data coming out of UW’s Firearms Research Center, which receives some of its funding from gun manufacturers.
Ultimately, in a tight 5-6 vote, the trustees voted against changing the weapons policy, deciding instead to maintain the current ban on concealed carry in campus facilities.
The bill passed by the legislature and allowed to become law by the governor will necessitate a revision of that policy. The UW trustees are allowed, by the new law, to establish required trainings or other rules for employees and volunteers who wish to carry on campus.
Government meetings and childcare centers
If Gordon had vetoed the bill this year, it’s likely the Wyoming Legislature would have overridden that decision, passing the bill over the executive’s objections. HB172 passed with overwhelming support in both chambers, with enough votes to override a veto.
In addition to allowing concealed carry permit holders to bring guns into schools and university facilities, the bill also allows “constitutional” carriers without a permit to carry into “any meeting of a governmental entity” and “any meeting of the legislature or a committee thereof,” as well as many other government buildings and airports, except for areas of both where federal law restricts concealed carry.
The repeal exempts “health and human services settings, health and human services facilities that are exempt from licensure or licensed by the department of family services or department of corrections or health and human services facilities that are certified by the behavioral health division of the department of health to provide residential services.”
This language — specifically the language disallowing concealed carry in facilities “exempt from licensure … by the department of family services” — is critical from UW’s perspective.
The original bill draft did not include it, meaning the Early Childhood Education Center on campus would have been forced to allow concealed carry. As a division of the state university, it is not licensed by DFS in the way other childcare centers across the state are.
The House rejected three attempts to exempt the ECEC, including an amendment sponsored by Albany County Rep. Trey Sherwood (HD-14). Later, and with little discussion, the Senate amended the bill to add the language above and exempt the ECEC. That amendment was proposed by Albany County Sen. Gary Crum (SD-10).
HB172 — now Enrolled Act No. 24 — also exempts campus facilities, such as labs, where “explosive or volatile materials” are present in significant quantities.
In Wyoming, individuals typically have to be 21 or older to acquire a concealed carry permit. While most high school students graduate before that age, some do not. And there are exceptions to the age requirement.
The bill clarifies that students are not allowed to carry on school grounds while still enrolled even if they would otherwise be allowed to.
this is insanity.