Colorado State University administrators released a draft weapons-control policy Wednesday that would ban all firearms from campus.

And while CSU’s Board of Governors is expected to enact the policy at its Feb. 23 meeting, student leaders say they won’t give up their right to carry concealed weapons on the Fort Collins and Pueblo campuses without having another say in the issue.

“Oh, there is no doubt we will respond to it,” said Matt Strauch, spokesman for the student government at CSU-Fort Collins.

CSU remains one of the few U.S. universities without a concealed-weapons prohibition.

The issue has sharply divided campus communities since December, when student, faculty and administrative groups split over whether to ban concealed weapons.

Faculty members voted for the ban. Student leaders at the campuses voted against it.

On Dec. 5, CSU’s governors voted 9-0 to prohibit concealed weapons on campus but left the details up to administrators.

They will vote next month on the plan drafted by a group that included campus lawyers, police chiefs and the presidents’ Cabinets.

CSU spokesman Brad Bohlander said university administrators expect to hear much about the issue before Jan. 29, the deadline for submitting comments.

“It’s been given to the campus community at large,” Bohlander said. “It’s also been sent to various groups on campus, including faculty council, student government and various employer groups as well.

“We tried to get it out to as many people as we could.”

The proposed policy would outlaw all firearms on campus, including guns held by people with a concealed-weapons permit. It includes items such as handguns, shotguns, rifles, bows, crossbows, Tasers, stun guns, pellet guns, machine guns, grenades and blasting caps.

CSU-Pueblo student body president Steve Titus said he was surprised when student leaders voted 8-1 on Monday against a concealed-weapons ban.

“There is this idea that this would infringe on someone’s constitutional rights, but it really isn’t,” Titus said. “We’re just trying to do everything we can to make classrooms safer.”

Even so, the Pueblo student group is hoping Tasers and stun guns can be allowed under the ban, Titus said. Many students consider those useful for self-defense, he said.

In December, student government leaders argued that concealed weapons would keep them safer by discouraging attacks similar to the one at Virginia Tech in 2007, when Virginia Tech senior Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people.

But the CSU faculty and the school’s governors sided with the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, which said in 2008 that there is no statistical credible evidence demonstrating that laws allowing the carrying of concealed weapons reduce crime.

The policy takes a risk-management approach that is consistent with the best practices of other colleges and universities, Bohlander said.

It is essentially an extension of the current policy that prohibits weapons in residence halls. The proposed policy extends those regulations to the entire campus with some exceptions.

The CSU police chief would have discretion to grant written permission to an individual for educational purposes or for other special circumstances.

The CSU chief also could grant a request for an exemption to carry a concealed weapon on campus if the applicant has a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Larimer County or for people covered by a court order of protection.

Police officers, members of the military and Reserve Officer Training Corps participants would be allowed to carry weapons under the proposal.

State Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, has said he will introduce legislation this year aimed at nullifying the proposed ban at CSU. He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Monte Whaley: 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com

Read the proposal

The proposed draft policy is available for review online at safety.colostate.edu.

Weigh in through Jan. 29 to presofc@colostate.edu.