WASHINGTON -- Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli assuaged a gathering of gun-rights activists at George Mason University, skewering the school's campus gun plan which his office had to defend before the Virginia Supreme Court.
Speaking at the Virginia Citizens Defense League's Thursday night meeting at a Fairfax County district government center in Annandale, Patch reports Cuccinelli said that as attorney general, he didn't want to "undercut" his client "by going out and saying something like, 'You're idiots for doing this."
The Virginia Supreme Court upheld GMU's campus policy in a January ruling.
Cuccinelli said now that the case, DiGiacinto v. Rector and Visitors of George Mason University, is over, he's free to criticize it: "The policy they've undertaken doesn't achieve their goals for campus safety."
In that case, a gun owner, Rudolph DiGiacinto, challenged GMU's ban on guns in campus buildings and sports and entertainment venues. He was not a student, but uses the campus library and other university facilities.
Members of the Virginia Citizens Defense League had said the attorney general went against his word when he spoke before the group as a candidate in 2008. As AmmoLand.com wrote in a preview of the event:
The Attorney General will be speaking about his support for the GMU gun ban, when he originally told VCDL members, as a candidate for Attorney General, that the ban wasn't valid.
The VCDL protested at George Mason University on Nov. 9 and followed up with a similar protest at Virginia Tech University on Thursday.
According to Patch:
When Cuccinelli had met with the VCDL three years ago, he'd told the group the General Assembly oversaw all gun control decisions. "I made a legal mistake when I spoke to you three years ago," Cuccinelli said. "I thought any agency in Virginia went through the General Assembly for gun laws," he said. In fact, that only applies to local governments, not to state agencies.
Cuccinelli berated Virginia's public universities for lobbying themselves through the General Assembly on an abbreviated legislative process. "Gee, it's so inconvenient to participate in a democracy, especially for those in the ivory towers," he said.
"They have their own special regulatory process, totally abbreviated," he said. "They shouldn't be treated any differently than any other state agency."
RELATED VIDEO: Ken Cuccinelli In 2008, Speaking To Virginia Civil Defense League