Utah’s done it. Now Texas is close to doing it. And nine other states may be right behind them.
If the Texas Legislature chooses to pass Senate Bill 354, concealed gun carry on college campuses will be legalized in the state. The possible action has caught the attention of campus shooting survivors who are now speaking out against the possible passage of the bill, according to a Tuesday Huffington Post article.
Survivors of the 1966 University of Texas shooting and more current shootings, such as the at 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, find the bill to be an affront to the memories of what they went through and a stretching of the Second Amendment.
I’ve had many discussions about concealed gun carry with peers since 2007, when the issue first had resonance on our own campus. Therefore, I’ve heard all the arguments that apparently outweigh the sentiments of those who survived shootings on college campuses.
Those supporting concealed gun carry point out if more people have guns and a means of defending themselves, violence and crime would go down. Another point supports the idea if citizens are allowed to carry guns, any violent situation could be ended much sooner if people could defend themselves.
Supporters of concealed gun carry believe a shooter with an intent to harm people will always ignore the current laws that prohibit gun carry and bring a gun on campus anyway. Therefore, citizens who are cleared to carry guns should be able to as well. Furthermore, the various laws, tests, background checks and age limits one must take to carry a gun should do well to weed out those who would use their guncarrying license for malicious ends.
It is illogical, almost insensitive, to allow handguns on campuses considering the various shootings that have happened on college and high school campuses in the past. The University of Texas had a shooting scare just last year.
In light of these events, allowing concealed gun carry on campuses should be the last idea on state legislator’s minds. Knowing the student next to us in class might be carrying a gun could be comforting to some, but it will inevitably be unnerving and distracting for others. This kind of tension is not conducive to the learning environment of any university, especially for universities who have had previous shootings.
Furthermore, concealed carry is not necessarily an assurance of higher levels of safety. Believing someone will inevitably be able to play hero in such a situation is somewhat naive.
Just because a person has a license to carry a gun doesn’t mean they won’t abuse their privileges. Ultimately, the passage of concealed carry laws only works to bring the object that has caused so much tragedy and horror onto our campus.
SB 354 ultimately leaves the decision in the hands of each individual university. My hope is if these laws continue to be passed, universities will make the best decisions for their students and continue to keep concealed handguns off college campuses.
— Jelani Sims, religious studies and professional writing senior
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braceyourself 1 year, 2 months ago
Everyone realizes that "bad guys" can easily get guns lawfully, right? Just checking, since the comments seem to indicate otherwise.
Jarhead1982 1 year, 2 months ago
Guess they do not teach religious studies and professional writing majors that facts are necessary to support unsubstantiated opinions like yours.
You claim fears and dangers, risks, yet you show no facts or data to support your position.
Hitler and his cronies did the same in 1930's to 1940's Germany, blaming their societies ill on the Jews. Yeah blaming and punishing the innocent is apparently a common practice, even among so called religious people.
What is the risk being near a person carrying concealed.
We see US Census 2008 18.4 mil students, 42% 21 or older, 4,300 schools.
186 mil / 4,300 schools = 4,276 avg. students per school
US Census 186 mil 21 or older, 8 mil cpl licensee’s BATF 8 mil / 186 mil = 4.3% of population has cpl license.
18.4 mil x 42% = 7.728 mil x 4.3% = 332,304 / 4,300 schools = 77.28 avg. per school.
77.28 / 4, 276 = 1.8% chance of being around a student who is carrying concealed. Oh wow, that is so scary and so dangerous.
Based on your unsubstantiated fear, we should see thousands, uh no, hundreds, uh no, even tens of police reports showing you college students are identifying and assisting police in catching people who are carrying concealed today? Nope, you people can’t even see the criminals carrying concealed today, yet you are more afraid of law abiding citizens than criminals. Speaks volumes of your mental immaturity.
Jarhead1982 1 year, 2 months ago
ILets review the following 9 mass shootings, and note what the body counts were where resistance occurred versus no resistance.
October 16, 1991, Luby’s Cafeteria, Killeen, TX, “Gun-Free”: 1 gunman, 23 murdered, 20 injured. December 17, 1991 Shoney’s Family Restaurant, Anniston, AL: 3 gunmen, 20 hostages, one ARMED customer (Thomas Glenn Terry). Police finally arrived to find one dead robber, one wounded robber and the third had fled when the shooting started. NO INJURED INNOCENTS. October 1, 1997, Pearl High School: 1 gunman, 2 murdered, 7 injured: Stopped by ARMED vice principal. April 20, 1999, Columbine, “Gun-Free”: 2 gunmen, 13 murdered, 24 injured. Many were murdered AFTER the police were “on scene”.
January 16, 2002, Virginia Appalachian School of Law: 1 gunman, 3 murdered, 3 injured. Killer was stopped when confronted by two ARMED students. April 16, 2007, Virginia Tech, “Gun-Free”: 1 gunman, 32 murdered, 25 injured. Most were murdered AFTER the police were “on scene”.
Dec 9 2007, Colorado Springs, New Life Church, 1 gunman 2 murdered, 3 injured, gunman stopped when armed woman shoots gunman, who then turns gun on self and commits suicide, while 100 other church members are in church. Feb 14,2008 Northern Illinois UNiversity, 1 gunman, 5 dead, 18 injured, gunman kills self long before police arrive to engage. Nov 5 ,2009 Ft Hood Texas, 1 gunman, 13 dead, 30 wounded. Military personnel on base are BANNED from having a weapon, but the shooter did, and it was almost 9 minutes before police responded
Gun Free Zone 5 incidents
Defenseless victims murdered: 86 Defenseless victims injured: 117
Where murderers encountered ARMED resistance 4 incidents
murdered: 7 Where murderers encountered ARMED resistance; injured: 13
Wow, where no resistance occurred 8 times higher body count.
Yep, a higher body count is morally superior to a lower body count based on Jelani’s beliefs. So what you going to believe, unsubstantiated fears, or the facts?
BrianCBiggs 1 year, 2 months ago
Jelani,
"Just because a person has a license to carry a gun doesn’t mean they won’t abuse their privileges."
Carrying a gun is not a privilege, but a right... and, non, I don't think that's stretching the second amendment.
Just because a person is told not to bring a gun to campus doesn't mean they won't.
"It is illogical, almost insensitive, to allow handguns on campuses considering the various shootings that have happened on college and high school campuses in the past."
or
And, in light of other recent debates about people taking lives; I'd like to ask why you are so anti-choice? If you are against guns then don't get a gun!
Tither 1 year, 2 months ago
Well Mr. Sims. When you figure out how to keep guns off campus's then come and talk to us. Then we will have no reason to want to carry them, and then we will have agreement!
kdbp1213 1 year, 2 months ago
when bad people stop harming good people, let's do away with one's right to defend one's self. what are the odds of bad people stopping the harming of good people? probably very slim odds.
are we able to have trained law enforcement personnel at every location in society? no.
why can't a lawful gun owner (non-law enforcement) use/carry a gun to defend him/herself and others on a school campus, in a grocery store, at a public library, in a shopping mall, my neighborhood, etc. when a bad person is inflicting harm on innocent, good people?
you know what? i don't like guns. i lack a gun permit & a gun. i'm scared of guns (& anything else that can be used a weapon.) i was a victim of an armed robbery in the late 1980s and really disliked having a gun pointed at me. turns out: the robber illegally obtained his gun. the bad guy was a dumb bad guy & got caught. i lived to testify against the bad guy and he did/is doing his time. but, i don't believe a lawful gun owner/carrier should be hampered by owning/carrying restrictions. i don't worry about the lawful gun owners, i worry about the bad people with illegally obtained guns. i say let the lawful gun owners protect themselves and me.
BambiB 1 year, 2 months ago
Only the really stupid ones think that the "no guns" policy that allowed Cho to kill without opposition is still a good idea.
I'll bet there were students peeing their pants and praying to god for a gun. But morons like you want to make sure they didn't have one. People like YOU helped kill the people at VaTech - by ensuring they could not fight back.
Josh_McNattin 1 year, 2 months ago
And how many shootings have there been at Utah? Utah not only allows campuses to have individuals with handguns, they guarantee that permit holders can carry on campus and I know for a fact that students do in fact carry. So show me the numbers, what have been the violent repercussions of this law? Don't tell me how "bad" it is from your vantage point in Oklahoma, you're not saying anything that hasn't been said a million times, just like the legions of anti-carry advocates who were shouting before you were born that conceal carry (when it was rarely allowed anywhere in the US) would result in blood in the streets, there would be daily occurrences of people settling disputes in the streets with gunfire and it has not happened.
Tell me more about this logic that you speak of, that somehow armed self-defense dishonors the innocent unarmed people who’ve been slain without a prayer for survival in past mass shootings? What do those tragedies have to do with my personal safety? When someone is stalking the halls at the university that I work in, kicking in doors and unloading rounds, what do I care about someone else’s idea of respecting the dead somewhere else? What is logical about that? When I am a candidate for joining them on the other side in the same manner? I would respect their memories by putting the offender down, that’s what they would want, not that it really matters to my personal decision for self-defense.
Do the police coming with their guns do dishonor to the memories of those people? Should they have a moment of silence and absolve themselves of their sins before they engage in their rescue operations? You oppose these things because you oppose violence, you abhor it, as do I. The problem is that we live in a world that we share with bad people, with violent natural disasters, with automobile accidents, but neither one of us can wish it away nor legislate it away, which are very much the same thing when reality comes calling.
The University of Texas shooting involved a man with a rifle on a tower, what does conceal carry have to do with that? And certainly a law barring someone from carrying a weapon concealed isn't going to stop someone who is bent on doing harm, the only people who will obey it are people who are lawful.
At Virginia Tech, Seung-Hui Cho went from room to room shooting people at will while the police received the 911 call, made their way to the scene and set up outside, the people inside were at Cho's mercy. It wasn’t “high capacity” magazines that killed people, it wasn’t conceal carry, it was a killer who went about his grisly business unchallenged. I believe that conceal carry was already illegal on VT's campus, was it not? And the victims obeyed, like lambs to the slaughter. If you want to curl up in a ball and pretend the bad men won't come for you because the legislature promises to protect you, go right ahead, but do not insist that I do the same.
drummer425 1 year, 2 months ago
By the way, in the UT shooting in the 60s, armed citizens returned fire to the clock tower after the shooter got a few shots off, pinning down and allowing law enforcement to close in and kill him.
But don't let actual facts stand in the way. People have feelings that they need heard!
drummer425 1 year, 2 months ago
Wow.
Most writers opposing concealed carry on campus at least pretend to approach the issue from a logical standpoint, but you actually concede that you allow "sentiments" to outweigh logical rationale. That's abhorrent.
You cite campus incidents as reasons to bar permit-holders from carrying on campus, despite that permit-holders were already barred from those campuses and yet the incidents still happened. The numerous campuses that do allow concealed carry have not ever had any such incidents.
This is rubbish and shouldn't have made it to the editor's desk.
BHirsh 1 year, 2 months ago
Yo, YO, Jelani -
Legal guns have a place anywhere there could possibly be a threat.
Let's see....
Was there a threat at Colombine?
Was there a threat at Virginia Tech?
Was there a threat at Fort Hood?
Yes. But THERE WERE NO GUNS, except those brought illegally by the shooters.
Do you expect anyone to believe that loonies bent on mass shootings actually CARE about the law?
Pu-LEEZE.
Try to firm up that mush between your ears and THINK, man, THINK.