Hello, my name is Michael, though I tend to go by 'Dae' in the online community. I'm a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, studying physics. Recently (as I'm sure some of you have heard about), CU-Boulder staged an iteration of the now widely popular college campus game 'Humans vs. Zombies'.
For those that have not heard of this game, the basic premise is that almost all of the players start out as humans, and wear a bandanna around their upper arm to indicate this. One or more of the players are chosen to start as zombies, however, and the wear their bandanna around their head. The goal of the zombies is the 'eat' the humans by tagging them, while the goal of the humans is to survive. Once 'eaten', a human becomes a zombie an hour later, and the zombie that did the eating can turn in the eaten player's game ID number to register a kill. Zombies must feed every 48 hours or they starve to death. The game lasts until all the humans are eaten or all the zombies starve to death.
There are some restriction on the game however. Inside any campus building and anywhere off-campus are safe zones, to allow players to take a break from the game at times (as it can often run for a week or more before concluding, there are usually a thousand or more players), and to avoid disrupting classes. Play is also only allowed during daylight.
Humans have some defenses against the zombies, however. They may utilize rolled up socks as projectiles, or create a 'flail' by stuffing one sock into the end of another. The most prevalent defense, though, is nerf guns. In any of the cases, a strike by a sock or nerf dart stuns the zombie in question for 15 minutes, preventing them from tagging or chasing humans or alerting or shielding other zombies.
Nerf guns are the hot issue, though. Again, as some of you have surely heard by now, CU-Boulder has specifically highlighted a nerf gun ban they have imposed. Violators can be subject to administrative or even legal action against them. The HvZ group has spent the better part of this month attempting to find a compromise with the CUPD to allow nerf guns for the 1-week HvZ event in the spring semester. The reasoning originally put forth for the ban was that nerf guns can be painted like real guns, or real guns may be painted like nerf guns, and the confusion could cause panic or fear on campus. The HvZ group responded by stating that nerf guns look and sound nothing like real guns, and that the HvZ event would place a strong rule prohibiting painted or modded nerf guns in the game, with violators subject to banning from the game and administrative or legal sanctions on campus. HvZ would also work with the school to post warnings around campus about what was going to, and to send out a campus-wide e-mail and phone alert to avoid people panicking at the sight of nerf guns, thinking them real.
CUPD has now come out with a new reasoning for the continued ban. There exists very very slight but still existant possibility that during the game, someone would have failed to get the information and would call the CUPD. According the CU policy, any call about a gunman must be reacted to until the gunman in question is apprehended as if the gun were real, even if it's a gun-shaped pile of flowers. The CUPD officers are not permitted to make a judgment call on whether the gun is real or not until after the issue is resolved. Now, if this call were made, the CUPD would then be obligated to respond as if it were a real gunman. If for some reason the wielder of the nerf gun then decided to refuse to cooperate with the police and either waves it menacingly or points it at the police, the police would be obligated to fire on the 'gunman' preemptively.
So at it's base, the CUPD is trying to avoid the potential political fall-out from this extremely remote possibility. Obviously this boils down to a student-rights issue, a right-to-bear-arms issue, and a definition-of-a-firearms issue, so I'm posting this here and on a couple other of the larger gun forum site my step-father has recommended for me to see if I can't secure some advice or assistance, especially legal, for HvZ.
According to Colorado law, universities are allowed to specifically legalize guns on their campus to members of any student group they authorize to carry handguns, so state law isn't an obstacle here. CU Regents Policy 14I (Accessible here) states the following in regards to the definition of a handgun:
The only sides I can see to attack here are to use the definition to prove nerf guns aren't a firearm and therefore not covered by their firearm ban, to come up with an argument that would convince the Chancellor of CU to overrule the CUPD and give us written permission to use them, or to come up with an argument for them to allow us their use under the definition of firearms as a student organization permitted to use them (obviously restricted to just nerf guns, though). The issue is that at this point, I'm not sure we can resolve this short of at least the threat of litigation, as the CUPD seems intent on doing nothing but covering their bums for the extremely remote what-if scenarios.Quote:
[...]A harmless instrumentality designed to look like a firearm, explosive, or dangerous weapon which is used by or is in the possession of a person with the intent to cause fear in or assault to another person is expressly included within the meaning of a firearm, explosive, or dangerous weapon[...]
So my ultimate question comes down to: is there anyone out here that can assist or advise, either legally or through experience with similar issues, the HvZ group as to what options we have left to resolve this issue favorably?
