A gun-rights group by the name of Florida Carry has filed a lawsuit against Florida State University on behalf of student Rebekah Hargrove, who wants to bring her guns to FSU football games. Well, if we’re being honest here that’s actually a little bit of a stretch. What Rebekah Hargrove and Florida Carry are specifically suing Florida State University over is the for the right to store guns in cars that are parked in campus parking lots during the football games, because FSU has a very strict ‘no guns in campus parking lots’ policy. As an alumnus of Florida State University myself I can’t fathom why any student feels the need to keep guns inside their cars on game days, but hey, I’m not the one filing the lawsuit am I?
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida State University student who wants to bring her gun to this weekend’s football game sued the school Tuesday over a policy that bans legal gun owners from locking their firearms in their cars while in the stadium cheering on their team.
The suit was filed by gun-rights group Florida Carry on behalf of Rebekah Hargrove, who also wants to drive to campus for classes without violating the school’s policy banning firearms in parking lots.
“This newest prohibition they put on their game day plan was such a blatant violation of state law,” said Florida Carry executive director Sean Caranna. “The law always allows this, but the problem is that we have a university saying people will be arrested for violating an illegal policy.”
The group is seeking an injunction before this Saturday’s game against the University of South Florida at Doak Campbell Stadium. More than 80,000 people typically attend Seminoles football games. While Florida law allows people who legally own guns to keep them locked in their cars, schools are among the exception to the law.
In 2012, however, an appeals court sided with Florida Carry in a lawsuit seeking to overturn the University of North Florida’s policy that banned guns locked in cars on campus.
The Legislature has considered but failed to pass bills the past two years that would allow students with concealed weapons permits to keep guns on campus. University President John Thrasher is a former senator who opposed the idea of allowing guns on campus while serving in the Legislature.
I haven’t been in Tallahassee for a game day in a few years, but I’m guessing not much has changed in terms of the rowdiness level. Let me just say this: on the average game day in Tallahassee I’d witness somewhere between 2 to 5 fights, sometimes a lot more if the Hurricanes were in town. For whatever reason fights were a part of life on game days in Tallahassee. And even though I witnessed an exorbitant amount of altercations not once did I ever see anyone get seriously injured. Now with that taken into consideration I want someone to explain to me WHY having guns on campus at any point is a good idea, let alone on game days when copious amounts of booze are flowing from sunrise until the last person passes out????
Having dealt with security once or twice in and around the stadium I can attest to the fact that there are plenty of armed police officers on campus during a game day to keep the peace (as well as inside Doak Campbell Stadium, the greatest stadium in all of college football). So the argument of ‘guns are needed to keep the peace’ is NOT applicable here, as there are more than enough armed officials around during an FSU game day. And listen: I’m all for anyone owning and stockpiling as many guns as they want. I just don’t see any reason whatsoever that those privately-owned guns need to be on campus during a game day.
For more on this truly bizarre lawsuit you can CLICK HERE to read the full story on AP.org.