Teacher sues for right to pack heat
An anonymous teacher in the Medford Schood District is suing to secure her right to carry a concealed weapon in the classroom. This “Jane Doe” says her life has been threatened multiple times by an abusive ex-husband; however, the teacher says she and her lawyer are primarily concerned with asserting and reinforcing the Second Amendment.
Oregon, unlike many states, allows teachers with concealed weapons permits to carry firearms, but almost all of the school districts in Oregon, such as Medford, do not. Either way the case is decided, it would apply only to Jackson County, unless it went to a higher court. The teacher’s case seems strong, especially with her personal safety at stake. This could be a good precedent for future Second Amendment cases, such as (oh, I don’t know) the right of college students to defend themselves from insane gunmen.
Colleges and universities across the nation made a show of discussing safety issues after the Virginia Tech massacre but accomplished shockingly little. In the end, it was back to “lie prone on the floor and wait to die.” The University of Oregon followed suit, advising students to call our bumbling, klepto (not to mention unarmed) campus security. OC alum Andy Dolberg ripped the U of O’s revised “safety policies” a new one.
This is great. Something needs to happen as OUS and school board policy is currently at odds over this lissue. I believe however as in the previous case, this woman will not have standing since she hasn’t been arrested or harmed in somehow from her school directors as a result of carrying a handgun. First she needs to take it to school, then be punished in some way as a result for her to have standing and to have the case moved forward and decided.
The “suffer” requirement would have nothing to do with her abusive ex-husband. She would have to suffer an actual injury to her civil rights, not to her person, by the policy, not by the ex-husband. Stubbs’ case was thrown out because he had never actually attempted to carry a gun on campus and had the policy enforced against him, so there was no injury to his rights. I think this was because he brought an “as-applied” challenge and it hadn’t been applied.
Oh Medford, is there anything you can’t do?
This is looking to be some great press for the City of Medford, not to mention the Oregon Firearms Federation, who is paying all the legal bills in this case.
See, I think this woman has a better case because she has (or will) suffer if she’s not allowed to carry a firearm (i.e. her crazy ex-husband kills her). Not to mention the restraining order against the ex-husband just expired. Well, not that restraining orders are worth the paper they’re printed on anyways. I don’t know, but it will at least be an interesting test of Second Amendment rights, and it has the potential to go pretty high in the courts if she wants to push it.
Many moons ago (by which a mean a few years) there was a UO GTF by the name of Brian Stubbs. He filed a similar lawsuit. He had a conceal-carry permit and felt that the OUS policy denying that privilege on campus violated the state Constitution. I wrote a story about it back when it happened (2004?). The suit was eventually thrown out of court because — if memory serves me correctly — he couldn’t prove that he had suffered, because the UO Gestapo never arrested him or confiscated his weapon. (There was no proof that he even brought it on campus.) He left the next year I think. Still, the way the state laws are set up, this is a pretty iffy situation.
If you talk to some of the OC old timers, they’ll tell you (possibly apocryphal) stories about carrying concealed guns on campus and having a gun safe in the office — cuz you never know when, or where, the Insurgent kids will start their revolt.