AUGUSTA – A bill sponsored by a Lewiston legislator would give public colleges and universities in Maine the authority to enforce gun-control policies.

State Rep. Peggy Rotundo’s bill does not call for firearms regulation but would grant public campuses the right to set their own policies if they choose, she said.

“Right now, they all have policies on their campuses; however, since the state has never given them that authority, the policies that they have in place really are not worth the paper they are written on and would not stand up, most likely, to any court challenge,” Rotundo said.

A lawyer who has spoken on the issue of firearms for about eight years agreed with Rotundo.

“There is a law in Maine that says that only the state Legislature can set gun policy,” said Bill Harwood, a lawyer with the firm of Verrill Dana in Portland.

“Many of the states have this law,” he said. “It’s something the (National Rifle Association) and gun lobby has pushed through, and what it does is prevent a patchwork of gun laws at the county and municipal level. Unfortunately, it catches up on places like the University of Maine and creates a little bit of a problem.”

A decade-old ruling by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court against the Portland Housing Authority, which had tried to ban guns from its leased property, serves as a precedent, Harwood said.

He said other states with similar laws have run into trouble with enforcement on public campuses. For example, the University of Utah lost a case under a similar Utah statute in 2006.

“And, a group of students a few months ago filed suit in a Colorado state court against the University of Colorado, arguing that a similar Colorado statute prevents the University of Colorado from regulating guns on campus,” Harwood said.

University of Maine officials say they so far haven’t had problems with students adhering to their policies.

Joe Carr, a spokesman for the University of Maine flagship campus at Orono, said the same student code that covers other disciplinary policies includes gun regulation.

“Students who live on campus are required to leave weapons of all kinds with our police,” he said. “They are kept locked and can be retrieved to take off campus to go hunting or play paintball or whatever it might be.”

Robert Dana, vice president for student affairs and dean of students at the University of Maine at Orono, said he had never witnessed a problem with enforcement of the policy.

“It’s never come up,” he said. “It’s our feeling that, yeah, absolutely, we would appreciate greatly a law, but we feel that campus policy also comes into play.”

Harwood said that position wouldn’t hold up in court.

“Here’s the problem: They have a perfectly rational policy, but my concern, and I believe Rep. Rotundo’s concern, is that given this pattern there is a substantial likelihood that that policy would be knocked down if it were challenged in court,” he said.

The loophole exists only on public campuses, so private schools such as Bates, Bowdoin and Colby colleges are free to enforce any gun policy they wish, he said.

The Maine Attorney General’s Office said it needed more time to examine the law before weighing in on the issue.

Rotundo sponsored the bill in the previous legislative session, only to see it die in the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. This time, the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee will deal with the bill, which has yet to be scheduled for a public hearing.

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