During an August 31 discussion on KBDI Channel 12's Colorado Inside Out (CIO) about a recent knife attack on a University of Colorado (CU) freshman, regular panelist Dave Kopel asserted that “CU -- unlike CSU [Colorado State University] -- continues to have this extremely dangerous policy of basically, in essence, officially being a safe haven for killers, and especially for mass killers.” Kopel, who is research director for the Independence Institute, added that “CU -- unlike CSU -- has the same policy that Virginia Tech did, which is no guns on campus by any law-abiding citizen no matter what kind of background checks you've been through, what kind of permits.” He further claimed, “We know that when these kinds of mass murders take place they almost always happen in these pretend gun-free zones, which are in fact safe zones for killers.”

As the Daily Camera of Boulder reported on August 27, CU failed to conduct a background check before hiring “Kenton Drew Astin, who was sent to a state mental hospital in 2001 after being accused of stabbing a 21-year-old Longmont man.” Astin is suspected in the attack on Michael Knorps, whose neck was sliced on August 27 in front of the University Memorial Center, where Astin worked as a cashier, according to an August 29 Rocky Mountain News online article. The News further reported, “The University of Colorado at Boulder will immediately begin doing criminal background checks on all employees, including temporary hires, as a result of the stabbing on campus this week, a CU official told parents in an e-mail.”

Kopel, who also is a media critic for the News, made his remarks about CU's “gun-free” campus being a “safe haven” for “mass killers” in response to CIO host Raj Chohan's question about whether CU should have been conducting background checks of employees before the knife incident. Kopel's reference to Virginia Tech's ban on guns echoed claims he made in an April 18 Wall Street Journal op-ed piece about the April 16 massacre in which a gunman killed 32 people on the university's campus before committing suicide. In his guest editorial, Kopel asserted that “Virginia Tech's policy only made the killer safer, for it was only the law-abiding victims, and not the criminal, who were prevented from having guns.”

From the August 31 broadcast of KBDI Channel 12's Colorado Inside Out:

CHOHAN: The stabbing of a student, rather, the stabbing of a student by a former student center employee, has spurred a variety of policy changes and actions at the University of Colorado. Over 4,000 students signed up for emergency text alerts from the school on Tuesday, and the school has put five employees with histories of mental illness on paid leave. CU is also beginning to perform background checks on new employees as it was discovered that Kenton Astin -- the person accused of the stabbing -- had a violent criminal record. David, the university is talking about doing these background checks. Should they have been doing them all along?

KOPEL: Well, probably, yes. And, and, you know, I think there's -- there might well be a lawsuit, or, you know, maybe the victim will choose not to, not to sue, but if he wanted to I think he'd be able to find good lawyers who would say it's a plausible case. On the other hand, you can say that the, the alleged perpetrator, even if they'd checked his record they would have found out, yeah, he, he was actually, he was arrested for attempted murder with a knife in the past, was not criminally punished for it because he was insane, and then, after some treatment, the, the people evaluating him said, “He's low risk and so we can let him go.” You know, and so, given that situation for CU, which is presumably trying to do a good job, which is to help people with, among other things, help people with mental problems who are safe to reintegrate into the community do that if, if the professionals say he's low risk. Maybe a jury would say, well, you can't blame CU for judging them. And, of course, low risk is not the same as zero risk. The text messaging thing is a great idea. CU -- unlike CSU -- continues to have this extremely dangerous policy of basically, in essence, officially being a safe haven for killers, and especially for mass killers, because CU -- unlike CSU -- has the same policy that Virginia Tech did, which is no guns on campus by any law-abiding citizen no matter what kind of background checks you've been through, what kind of permits. And it's -- we're not talking about 20-year-olds in fraternities, which I would agree shouldn't have guns. You're talking about a professor not being able to have a gun in a locked box in his office; a graduate student, maybe a 27-year-old medical student not being able to have a gun when she has to cross a parking lot late at night. We know that when these kinds of mass murders take place they almost always happen in these pretend gun-free zones, which are in fact safe zones for killers.

CHOHAN: Well, David, it's an interesting topic. How does it relate, though, to an insane person wielding a knife, attacking a student on campus?

[Laughter]

KOPEL: Well, well, if you, if you have --

NEWSUM: Ding.

KOPEL: -- if you have several people in an area who might have a gun that they are lawfully carrying after passing a background check and safety training, then when some crazy guy comes out with a knife or any other weapon, you have a greater chance that somebody might be able to take immediate steps to protect the victim.

CHOHAN: OK. Dani, your thoughts.

NEWSUM: You know, David, you don't advance your argument for, you know, to arm every, every co-ed in, in, on a college campus -- you don't advance that argument by saying that CU is a safe haven for killers, as if the administration intended to create a safe haven. That's not it at all. All we have to do is, look -- in, in, look at college campuses, certainly public college campuses, they're probably the most open public facilities we have. And maybe it does seem like a time warp, particularly after not just 9-11, but after Columbine. And it may, and it does seem like a time warp where you have universities that are so very open, but they do have a tradition of that. That's not just, that is not just CU. Having said that, they do have this text, this text messaging system, which apparently folks really signed up for after the stabbing. They had an electrical blowout, blackout for a while, and the numbers of folks who received a text message had doubled just in two or three days since the stabbing. But the answer isn't to arm. [laughs] I went to CU. I went to CU. It earned its, its, it, it earned its title of party school, and the last thing is to arm folks who are, who really are not capable of exercising the really kind of solid judgment that you should before you, you carry a weapon. That is not the answer. Background check? Yeah.

CHOHAN: OK.

NEWSUM: Background check no matter what the position.