Do you think that Texas College students and Professors should be allowed to carry a concealed weapon around campus?
Many supporters of these proposals may say it should be allowed to help prevent future shootings on school campuses that we have seen in the past.
Or that it would be great for self-defense. They think that carrying a concealed weapon around school will somehow make it safer, and will argue that it’s a “guns right” issue.
Many who are against these proposals know and fear that allowing guns on campus is extremely dangerous.
All students know that college campuses are not safe no matter how much security there are. Everyone receives the emails where someone is robbed, or sexually assaulted.
Do you think that carrying a weapon is going to magically stop these acts from happening?
It could only make matters worse. Who’s to say that student A would or would not pull out there gun as a joke and it accidentally fires off and someone across the yard gets hit.
Who’s to say student B receives a failing grade and pulls there gun on to their teacher to change their grade.
Who’s to say that student A and B leave The Den and get into a brawl and pulls their guns out, shooting each other. All of these scenarios could in fact happen.
Allowing guns on campus could lead to a rise in suicide attempts and many confrontations.
Personally, I fear that someone will pull out their handgun just to get there own way or to win a dispute.
There are a lot of irresponsible people that really do not need to be bringing concealed weapons on campus.
A Republican Rep. Joe Driver who is filing this bill explained that he is not encouraging students to go out and become a licensed weapon holder, but to encourage students to protect themselves. So basically he’s saying guns are the only way to protect us on campus!
The question and answers to this issue should be in the campuses hand, to make the safest decision keeping both sides in mind but also keeping all scenarios open.
This is the single most unsubstantiated argument against guns on campus I have ever read.
All the scenarios could possibly happen, ANYWHERE, regardless of whether firearms are allowed on campus or not. If a person is irresponsible enough to pull a gun as a joke, unstable enough to shoot a professor over grades, or brazen enough to have a wild west shoot out at the Den, more than likely that individual would be willing to do these things regardless of whether the campus allows concealed carry on or not. To my knowledge, the campus shootings that have occurred in the past few years were all on campuses which DO NOT allow firearms on campus. Which means the only people on campus with a firearm are the ones who are willing to break the law and use them for the wrong reason.
In Texas, to get a CFL (concealed firearms license) you must pass a background check, take a class, and prove proficiency with the firearm during a range exam AND be at least 21 years of age. If a resident of Texas does these things, they have proved that they are stable, knowledgable, and able, to use a firearm for the correct reasons and are allowed to carry a weapon with them. If an individual which has been issued a CFL is deemed unfit at any point, for criminal or health reasons, the state revokes the license indefinitely.
In my opinion, if an individual can prove this to the state I would feel they should be able to carry on campus serving as a barrier and deterrent between the members of this great university and the troubles community in which it resides. I understand that college students are a group which are maturing and may or may not be suitable for concealed carry, regardless of where they are, HOWEVER; that is for the state to decide when issuing a CFL, not other residents of the state. Being that you must be at least 21 years of age to get the license, it will not be freshmen who are new to campus life, but rather seniors who would be able to carry on campus. Also, anyone with a CFL knows that you cannot show your weapon unless you plan to use it, this isn't a street gang banger waving his gun around to rivals in an attempt to gain respect, it is a safety precaution which is a last resort.
I also feel that steps could be taken to slowly evolve the course of allowing CFL holders to carry on the UH campus. For instance, Step one: Military veterans with a CFL could carry on campus; no firearms allowed for on campus residents. Step Two: All CFL holders could carry on campus; no firearms allowed for on campus residents. Step Three: CFL holders can carry on campus; specific on campus housing allows firearms such as Cullen Oaks or Cambridge Oaks which are apartments rather than dormitories.
Our students are targeted because criminals know there will be no threat to them when they choose a victim. Should CFL holders be allowed to carry in any form on campus, I believe that the attackers would be deterred and crime would decrease substantially.
"HOWEVER; that is for the state to decide when issuing a CFL, not other residents of the state."
Oh please. Enough of this…if people don't want guns around, we won't have guns around. If you want a gun that badly, freaking carry it if you think your life is in that much danger. Sounds like this whole thing is just a bunch of people who want to expand their CHL gun club and can't be honest about their true intentions, pretending it's about school shootings aahaha…learn to solve your own problems, or someone will solve them for you.
And what pray are these 'true intentions'. A simple extension of CHL laws? Allowing concealed carry on campus will decrease crime. This is supported by facts as in the 5 years following the first issuance of a CHL in Texas, the murder rate was cut by nearly half of it's original level.
That's a somewhat delusional argument, as the surest way to decrease murder is to abolish guns completely. But I'm not in favor of that, just in favor of exposing the cognitive dissonance of the dogmatic gunsters. I am not aware of their 'true intentions' any more than they are — meaning not at all. See if you can figure it out.
So.. You accuse them of hiding their true intentions which you find so nefarious and yet you do not know what they are? How can you 'expose the cognititve dissonance' of them if you have no idea what they are supposedly attempting to accomplish with such subterfuge.
In addition, your words fly in the face of facts which I have posted. They simply are not based in reality. Criminals carry weapons illegally. 'illegally' means against the law. Why should a law that would abolish guns cut the murder rate when criminals already act contrary to the rule of law?
Poorly written. Poorly edited. I know this is an opinion article but even opinion needs some facts. This is ALL opinion. "Do you think that Texas College students and Professors should be allowed to carry a concealed weapon around campus?"
Yes,
"Many supporters of these proposals may say it should be allowed to help prevent future shootings on school campuses that we have seen in the past."
What? You lost me when you referred to the same thing in future and past tense.
"Or that it would be great for self-defense. They think that carrying a concealed weapon around school will somehow make it safer, and will argue that it’s a “guns right” issue."
Maybe because since in the 5 years following the first issuance of CHLs in Texas, the murder dropped by nearly half of its 1995 level. Its a civil rights issue you dolt.
"Many who are against these proposals know and fear that allowing guns on campus is extremely dangerous."
Why? Since the fall semester of 2006, state law has allowed licensed individuals to carry concealed handguns on the campuses of the nine degree-offering public colleges (20 campuses) and one public technical college (10 campuses) in Utah. Concealed carry has been allowed at Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO) since 2003 and at Blue Ridge Community College (Weyers Cave, VA) since 1995. After allowing concealed carry on campus for a combined total of one hundred semesters, none of these twelve schools has seen a single resulting incident of gun violence (including threats and suicides).
"All students know that college campuses are not safe no matter how much security there are. Everyone receives the emails where someone is robbed, or sexually assaulted."
You generalize the student body and assume you know everyone. You also made a horrible grammatical error, which does not help your position whatsoever. And yes we do.
"Do you think that carrying a weapon is going to magically stop these acts from happening?"
No. its called psychology. If you knew that there was a decent chance that a person you are about to attack was a UFC fighter, would you attack him? Same goes with guns.
"It could only make matters worse. Who’s to say that student A would or would not pull out there gun as a joke and it accidentally fires off and someone across the yard gets hit."
The word is 'their' and there is no precendent for a sane person to do such a thing.
"Who’s to say student B receives a failing grade and pulls there gun on to their teacher to change their grade."
The word would quickly get out and the student would be arrested. Assuming the professor wasn't carrying. Also assuming that someone who went through all the trouble to legally carry the weapon would jeaporadize it over something so trivial.
"Who’s to say that student A and B leave The Den and get into a brawl and pulls their guns out, shooting each other. All of these scenarios could in fact happen."
Its 'pull their guns out and start shooting each other'. And, theoretically, Chuck Lidell could in fact have a throwdown with William Shatner but I have never seen such a thing. Show me a precedent.
"Allowing guns on campus could lead to a rise in suicide attempts and many confrontations."
Show me a precedent.
"Personally, I fear that someone will pull out their handgun just to get there own way or to win a dispute."
Show me a precedent.
"There are a lot of irresponsible people that really do not need to be bringing concealed weapons on campus."
If they really wanted to, they would bring it on campus anyway. Its not like we have metal detectors everywhere. Laws rarely stop criminals.
"A Republican Rep. Joe Driver who is filing this bill explained that he is not encouraging students to go out and become a licensed weapon holder, but to encourage students to protect themselves. So basically he’s saying guns are the only way to protect us on campus!"
You are oversimplifying his statement. He is saying that it is important for people to be able to protect themselves. The best way to do so is to prevent a crime in the first place so why not give responsible citizens who have gone through the rigorous process of procuring a license the ability to protect themselves.
"The question and answers to this issue should be in the campuses hand, to make the safest decision keeping both sides in mind but also keeping all scenarios open."
This is gibberish.
Check and mate.
Agreed. Game, set, match. Very well done.
wow. what a poorly written and edited article.
that's daily cougar style for you.
i won't even take the time to respond to this nonsense.
but you actually did take the time to respond…what a failure.
I can't believe this got posted. The writer didn't look up a single statistic or fact. Go onto the DPS state website, look at the UCR data, and you will see that legal concealed handgun licensees commit far less crimes than non-holders.
Students on campus can possess pocket knives, do you see anyone stabbing a professor over a grade? What about two students knife fighting each other? Did the author even think to look at the data at colleges where it's legal to be a CHL holder? No, she didn't.
I was having a civil discussion with a person in my major, on campus, about stuff having to do with our major — spontaneously they pulled out a knife and started waving it around, pointing out that it had less than a 6 inch blade and therefore was totally legal. That was the end of that argument and I figured I had lost. People are sick; they just want to escalate. It's always the weirdos who are into that stuff, too (hate to break it to you).
1) that was a knife not a firearm
2) that person is probably not the brightest bulb in the box
3) knives are not bound by any licensing laws in the manner that firearms are
4) if the person is dumb enough to do that then they would not pass the 'sound state of mind' statute required to obtain a CHL
5) show me a precedent in which someone has done such a thing with a gun.
In the future, please read the post to which I am responding before you respond.
I did. Unless I misinterpreted it, you are attempting to draw a connection between your crazy acquaintance and gun owners.
Some how I don't believe this tall tale. First off if some one does such a thing when there is no threat to them or crime being committed they have just commited at least a class A misdermenor or a felony. This type of secnerio is covered in the class the CHL holders take. You are taught that you are never to brandish any weapon unless stopping a crime that is being committed or in self defense. If you do, do not pass go, do not collect $200, you go straight to jail.
This was a guest commentary in the paper… looks like either the website editor or the opinion editor screwed up on this one.
This is a horribly-written article. I'm hoping that English isn't your first language. If it is, then the education system has clearly failed you.
That said, your "article" is nothing more than a collection of half-witted, stream of consciousness thoughts, if we loosely define thoughts. It amounts to a bunch of ill-researched fears and conjecture. While I respect your right to have an opinion, I encourage you to do a little research and figure out what a fact and supporting argument is.
As a Texas CHL Instructor, it is my professional opinion that Zoe Wales is definitely not mature enough to have a CHL. I would not expect her to be able to pass my course.
Ms. Wales also does not appear literate enough to be attending college. That screed reads like a really severe case of projection on the part of some middle-schooler. See my blog at http://chl-tx.com (ariticles) — I check all of my posts for spelling, grammar, and facts before clicking on "publish."
If you are against concealed weapons on campus please support this cause
http://www.causes.com/causes/587954-no-concealed-…
And how people forget it took armed citizens not cops to really stop the blood shed up in the tower.
Lets see…
Risk, lets calculate it.
US Census 2008 18.4 mil students, 42% 21 or older, 4,300 schools
US Census 2008 approx. 186 mil 21 or older BATF 8 mil cpl licensee's 8 mil/186 mil = 4.3%
18.4 mil x 42% = 7.728 mil x 4.3% = 332,304 / 4,300 = 77.28 people on avg. per school carrying concealed
18.4 mil / 4,300 schools = 4,276 avg school population means 77 .28 / 4,276 = 1.8% chance you will be around a person carrying concealed.
Number of people arrested due to students pointing out people carrying concealed, ZERO! Funny how people can be so afraid of something a law abiding citizen is doing, but won't say a thing about the bad guys doing it. Must believe the bad guys have superior rights.
Now lets see the second part of the risk and compare a person carrying concealed against someone supposedly safe, say a doctor?
JAMA Journal of American Medical Association 2001 Medical Malpractice report shows 700k doctors in US killed 44k to 98k people or an avg. of .065 to .14 deaths per doctor.
The worst case report available, is a VPC rabid anti gun zealot report 2009 that claims 137 deaths by the 8 mil cpl licensee's in the US over a 3 year time frame. The report as all anti gun rhetoric does, fails to contextually verify whether person involved had a concealed permit or did not, was a felon or not, was justifiably defending themselves or not etc, etc, etc, etc. Funny how review of the states ccw database sources will show a lower number of incidents than the VPC report claims. Then again, using the worst the anti gun zealots can dream up, just makes the numbers harder for them to refute as it is their data.
So 137 over 3 years divided by 8 mil cpl licensees is an avg. .00000562 deaths per licensee.
.065 to .14 / .00000562 = 12,000 to 25,000 times more likely a doctor is to kill you than a person carrying concealed.
Now that you have most of the basic data for a Law of Probabilities calculation, maybe our wet behind the ears anti gun protege can show everyone how being around a person maybe 1.8 % of the time who is 12,000 to 25,000 times less likely than a doctor to kill you is a really horrible substantial risk eh? ROTFLMFAO, EOTFLMFAO, ROTFLMFAO, ROTFLMFAO, ROTFLMFAO, ROTFLMFAO,
Yeah, just what we figured, no valid responses, anti's never can.
Hats off to you sir
If it's such a basic right why obsess over the need to ask permission? Sounds like the "bad guys" have figured out something the rest of us haven't. There are, what, a couple of murders a day in Houston and probably thousands of illegal guns? Sounds like pretty good odds.
I hope you don't write your English papers in such a discombobulated way. Care to clarify your position?
Because historically this whole law of not allowing citizens to carry handguns period stems from the reconstruction politics and racisim. Because when people are able to defend themselves against criminal activity the only way they could stop a certain segment from defending themselves easily was to take away all the rights of all the people of the state. Because that segment was now considered a full fledge citizen with all the rights as everyone else. Funny but that same segment is supporting the group that is trying to take away more and more of those rights. Just to funny.
I feel the same way but in a slightly different scope. That is, I see what you're saying as being a symptom of a larger problem, that being the govt. acting as a form of rigged problem-solver pretending to be benign. And irrespective of the particular laws, you can be assured that those laws will be set up to conform to the wishes and desires of a specific set of people. It's like your last sentence, but not quite. I think there are people who are accustomed to getting what they want, no matter what anybody else thinks, and this is just another case of that.
Ah, poor T3, no cognizant response again and as for your belief "if" it is such a right, ROTFLMFAO. Ladies & Germs, it truly appears that we are dealing with a constitutional scholar and genius who by the broken synapsese in his progressive damaged brain can infer or claim an inherent and adjudged right may or may not exist.
A person who claims planning and being prepared for a worst case scenario is crazy. But then T3 should be a national leader promoting how life, home, car, and health insurance are absolutely unnecessary as to plan and prepare in case of worst happenings is obviously insane. The same should be happening to all those fire, a EMT's , police, SWAT, Military or any natural disaster preparedness drills as planning like that is obviously insane.
Then again, since the police are not legally liable by law to protect the individual citizen (10 separate court rulings), best response times are 4 minutes, avg. 10-15 minutes we see how the attackers will wait out of concern and courtesy for the police to arrive.
Oh wait, we see that in 2008, there were 1.38 mil violent crimes reported, 381k involved a firearm, 82,252 injuries from shootings FBI UCR & CDC, and oh, don't forget the 4.8 mil violent crimes unreported USDOJ National Victimization report 2008.
My we can refer to actual police & government data that defensive gun uses occur many times a day (no shots fired), and show from multiple web sites an avg. of 80 a month from police reports where shots were fired. Care to take the challenge oh unelightened one? Lets see your government data and logic based on actual facts.
But hey, warn us when you have actual government data to support your rants as we will need to dress warm for Hell freezing over!
From the article
"Do you think that carrying a weapon is going to magically stop these acts from happening? "
My question do you think that keeping it illegal to bring firearms onto a college campus will magically stop these acts from happening?
Like it did at Virginia Tech?
I don't agree with the argument, and the writing isn't great, but how about we focus on prevention of crime in the first place instead of what to do when a situation erupts?
Many universities are gated and have more police on staff than we do. Also, our parking lots are out in the middle of nowhere with little to no protection, and security in the dorms and on-campus apartments is an absolute joke. The police officers seriously look like they are tipsy half of the time.
If we would pay more attention to current lapses in security, maybe we wouldn't need to bicker about whether or not we should allow the <1000 students (out of what, 50k?) with CFLs to have it with them on campus. In my opinion this bill is a politically loaded distraction, and it probably won't make any difference on campus at all.
That's what this bill wants to do. Prevent crime. There is no realistic way to search the 40,000 students and faculty that we have on campus. Unless we want to spend our entire budget on security.. The fact is that if someone wants to do harm they will if given the opportunity. This bill is meant to offer a deterrent to crime. We do not have a police officer in every single place on campus. Honestly I think that would be a bit Orwellian. But if there is a good chance that there is one trained person carrying a weapon on your class, I would bet that a criminal would think twice about committing the crime.
What this article doesn’t take into consideration are facts. There’s plenty of what ifs. There is no supporting evidence, just an impotent and.misguided plea and voicing ignorant firearms fear. So, here are some facts. CHL holders undergo 4 to 6 hours of training and a background check before being given their license. In mass shootings, the casualty rating is upwards of twenty when there’s no CHL holder present, and averages about 2.7 when there is.