University considered a gun rights speech such a threat that it made students hire cops to patrol it

Boise State University (BSU) forced a conservative student group to pay to hire extra security guards and police officers in order to bring a gun-rights speaker to campus.

The BSU chapter of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) invited Dick Heller, who won a 2008 Supreme Court Case that allowed residents of the District of Columbia to buy and own handguns, to speak on campus on May 16.

“Boise State overstepped its bounds by charging extra security fees last minute for an event where the goal wasn’t to have an open-carry gun rally, but rather provide an educational forum for our students and community regarding a very important, historical Second Amendment Supreme Court ruling.”

YAL said the school charged the group a last-minute $465 fee to hire three extra guards and two city police officers to patrol the speech, claiming the event was a threat to campus security.

“We do charge campus groups for security when it is deemed a necessary component of an event, based on threat assessments,” BSU communications staffer Kathleen Tuck told Idaho Reporter, a local news source.

“In this case, there was concern that a community member had been encouraging folks to open carry,” she continued.

But YAL said the group specifically warned against open carrying in the official event announcement.

“Boise State overstepped its bounds by charging extra security fees last minute for an event where the goal wasn’t to have an open-carry gun rally, but rather provide an educational forum for our students and community regarding a very important, historical Second Amendment Supreme Court ruling,” YAL leader Sherlyn Rose wrote in an email to the Reporter.

BSU has not stated whether or not it has ever charged extra fees for other events.

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