Hart House’s rifle and revolver clubs may lose the exemption that allows them to keep firearms on campus, effectively abolishing the two groups. If administrators revoke the exemption, the Hart House board of stewards could disband the then-defunct groups on Sept. 20.
While support for the decision is almost unanimous on Governing Council’s University Affairs Board, club members want a say in the matter.
Kristofer Coward, a senior member of both clubs and a student representative on GC, launched a hunger strike hoping to convince governors to intercede. His fast lasted just under eight days, and on June 8 he told The Varsity he would seek to overturn the decision through administrative channels.
Citing the minutes of GC meetings, Coward claimed that U of T adopted the 1994 gun policy with the understanding that administrators would not interfere with Hart House gun clubs.
U of T’s Statement on the Bearing of Firearms, adopted in 1994, bans anyone but on-duty police or Canadian Armed Forces members from carrying guns on campus. The rifle and revolver clubs have always been exempted from the policy.
For Coward, the clubs are central to U of T’s purpose as a learning institution.
“Students know that taking on our society’s taboo against guns by going out and actually shooting one is as stimulating and challenging an experience as they can get in their best classes,” Coward said in a May 30 speech to the UAB.
Dean of Physical Education Bruce Kidd defended revoking that exemption, calling it inappropriate for the university to sanction the teaching of weapons usage. Kidd did note that once-lethal sports such as fencing and boxing have evolved into purely athletic pursuits, but added that shooting for sport was different.
“People don’t duel anymore and fencing was a vestige of an old form. Guns are so much part of the popular culture and they’re hotly debated.
“As an educational institution, we should not be teaching the use of guns,” he told the UAB.
Coward called this position “utter rubbish” and contended that administrators should not have the power to decide what can be taught on campus.
VP and provost Vivek Goel referred to “tragic events at other universities and colleges” in his official response to the decision, which was first announced just days after a shooting at Virginia Tech killed 33 students, including gunman Seung-Hui Cho.
The fatal shooting of grade nine student Jordan Manners at Toronto’s C.W. Jefferies Collegiate Institute followed soon after on May 23, allegedly perpetrated by two fellow students. In September 2006, Kimveer Gill killed one and wounded 19 with three legally-purchased and registered guns at Montreal’s Dawson College.
The Hart House clubs both have perfect safety records over their 80-year history. Addressing the UAB on May 30, Courtney Gibson said the clubs helped lay the foundation for gun owner screening in Ontario. As of April 12, when Hart House published its review of clubs and committees, the two clubs tallied a membership of 423 students and alumni.
