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Students weigh in on campus carry legislation

campus carry infographic

| Infographic by Josue Diaz

Cougars have mixed feelings regarding their safety after the new campus carry bill was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott Saturday.

Michael Leon, an incoming Management Information Systems freshman, feels that it is risky but can also have benefits.

“I think self-defense is a good thing,” Leon said. “You never know when you might need to defend yourself or eliminate a threat.”

Leon is concerned, however, that not everyone will show the same respect to law enforcement in an open shooter situation.

“If someone were to go crazy and start shooting  on campus, everyone else on campus with a gun might try to be a hero,” Leon said. He fears a situation like this could confuse police officers trying to stop the shooter.

Texas is now the eighth state to pass a law forcing public colleges and universities to allow concealed weapons on campus. The law is set to go into affect August 1, 2016 for public universities. Public junior colleges will get an extra year to prepare for implementation of the law.

Twenty-three states have adopted similar laws that allow universities to decide individually whether or not to allow concealed weapons on campus.

Business management senior Maryjah Pyles does not think concealed carry should be an option at all.

“You really can’t put anything past anybody, so you really don’t want to put them in that situation,” Pyles said.

While universities in Texas are prohibited from opting out of campus carry, the law does offer wiggle room for administrators to place restrictions on specific areas of campus.

The governing board of each institution will have to submit their decisions and the reasons for their restrictions to Texas legislation for review every two years. Legislation will then decide weather the restrictions are “within reason.”

Titiana Walker, a former student and current employee at the Barnes and Noble at the University Of Houston, feels that her position as a retail employee might make her more susceptible to the threat of gun violence.

“I work with money,” said Walker. “Students are broke. Sometimes, the campus is really empty and anyone could come in here and hold me up. This is a college campus. Students get stressed over exams and their personal lives. Giving guns to people under that amount of pressure is not safe.”

The law does not require universities to make any special preparations for concealed carry, nor does it require any extra security measures.

It is unclear from President and Chancellor Renu Khator’s statement so far what security measures the university will put in place.

The Student Government Association released a statement after the bill was passed that that said they “will absolutely take into account the input and advice of any and all students wishing to make comment.”

SGA Senator Edwin Mascorro said he encourages students to attend SGA meetings to give their opinions on where they stand on the campus carry issue so that they would be able to “appropriately advocate for the students.”

“We are (elected) to advocate on behalf of the student body,” Mascorro said. “I would encourage the student body to please attend the meetings so that all views can be heard, whether they are for or against.”

In 2009, SGA passed a resolution opposing a similar bill that would have allowed concealed carry on campus.

Additional reporting by Remy Vogt

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20 Comments

  • Absolutely idiotic quote by the Barnes & Noble employee: “This is a college campus. Students get stressed over exams and their
    personal lives. Giving guns to people under that amount of pressure is
    not safe.”

    Like college is SO stressful that allowing a student to exercise his/her Second Amendment right is a disaster in the making. Every college student is a potential mass murderer because they’re stressed.

    GMAB.

    • By actual count, concealed carries are 4 times more prevalent in the ranks of active/mass shooters than they are in the general population. Anyone with a permit on campus should be flagged as high risk.

      Here’s a student who implemented his own ‘final solution’ when threatened with failing grades:

      “At approximately 8:30 a.m. on October 28, 2002, Robert Stewart Flores, Jr., entered the College of Nursing at the University of Arizona armed with a Norinco .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol, a Glock .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol, a Smith and Wesson .357-caliber revolver, a Colt .357 semi-automatic revolver, a Czech 9-mm semi-automatic pistol, and approximately 250 rounds of ammunition. Flores then shot to death three nursing professors before taking his own life. Flores had a valid “concealed carry” permit. The requirements for obtaining such a permit in Arizona included the successful completion of a 16-hour safety training course and a successful background check conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

      criminal-justice[.]iresearchnet[.]com/crime/school-violence/robert-flores/

      • An unhinged individual hell-bent on killing people is going to kill people whether or not he/she has a concealed carry permit.

        Citing the case of one such unhinged individual from thirteen years ago is not proof that CCW permit holders are a danger.

        Ever heard of Susanna Hupp? If not, check out You Tube videos of her testimony before Congress. Then get back to me.

        • Hey, Sharpest knife in the drawer! Here are 18 concealed carriers from the 2014 FBI study of active shooters (plus John Lott’s addendum from his critique). That’s 18 from 143 total 21-and-over shooters from 2000-2013, representing 4x the average prevalence of concealed carriers in the general population during the period. If you ever happen upon a mass shooting, chances are the only permit holder on the scene is the one slaughtering people:

          Active shooter concealed carriers:
          sep 16, 2013 — Aaron Alexis / Washington D.C. (Navy Yard)
          jul 27, 2013 — Pedro Alberto Vargas / Hialeah, Florida
          *jun 20, 2013 — Javier Burgos / West Palm Beach, Florida
          apr 21, 2013 — Dennis Clark III / Federal Way, Washington
          sep 27, 2012 — Andrew John Engeldinger / Minneapolis, Minnesota
          may 30, 2012 — Ian Lee Stawicki / Seattle, Washington
          sep 09, 2010 — Yvonne Hiller / Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
          aug 03, 2010 — Omar Sheriff Thornton / Manchester, Connecticut
          jun 06, 2010 — Gerardo Regalado / Hialeah, Florida
          mar 09, 2010 — Nathaniel Alvin Brown / Columbus, Ohio
          nov 6, 2009 — Jason Samuel Rodriguez / Orlando, Florida
          sep 11, 2009 — Harlan James Drake / Owosso, Michigan
          aug 04, 2009 — George Sodini / Collier Township, Pennsylvania
          apr 03, 2009 — Linh Phat Voong, aka Jiverly Wong / Binghamton, New York
          mar 10, 2009 — Michael McLendon / Coffee & Geneva Counties, Alabama
          may 19, 2007 — Jason Kenneth Hamilton / Moscow, Idaho
          jul 28, 2006 — Naveed Afzal Haq / Seattle, Washington
          *oct 29, 2002 — Robert S. Flores / Tucson Arizona
          *added from Lott’s additional 20 incidents

          Total N = 180
          Age 21-and-over N = 143
          “Permitted” active shooters: 18

          Violence Policy Center has identified at least a dozen more, just from the second half of that study period.

          • Talking points and opinions are not vaild. 18 permitted active shooters out of a pool of millions? Really?? Texas has over 800,000 permitted carriers, and Florida over 1,000,000. FBI and Texas DPS statistics pain a very different picture than Violence Policy Center which has a specific agenda.

            • Thanks, Randy. The bloody one obviously did not take my suggestion and has never seen/heard Dr. Hupp’s testimony. Nor does he/she care to. Typical gun-grabbing lib.

              • Suzanna Hupp has an anecdote, consisting of conjecture and wishful thinking about how positive the outcome would have been for a shootout. Not surprisingly, there is no discussion of how to restrict the insane from access to high-capacity semi-automatic weapons, nor is there any consideration of the increased risk of violent death and especially suicide by those who have guns. This is decision-making by conjecture and anecdote, which is how most gun people think.

                Texas homicide rate (with 24/7 patrol by 826,000 CHL holders): 4.4
                Texas campus homicide rate (gun-free zone): 0.14
                Number of times safer it is to be on-campus than off-campus: 31

            • Not talking points, and not opinions. Hard numbers. Over the FBI study period (2000-2013) concealed carriers were on average 3% of the 21-and-over US population, but 12% of the 21-and-over US active/mass shooters. VPC hasn’t explored that ratio yet. I dug into the FBI study because I was curious about the relative frequency of defensive vs offensive uses by concealed carriers in these types of incidents. The list of spree killers with permits looked out of proportion, so I checked, and it was. You can’t just dissolve that fact away by misapplying a huge denominator like “millions” [of carriers].

              The only statistic the FBI keeps on the subject is justifiable homicide by citizen / weapon type / total by gun / by handgun. That “total by gun” number averages about 240 per year, which is fewer than the number of Americans struck by lightning. The handgun (and therefore concealed carry) number is smaller yet.

              The Texas DPS numbers have very little meaning. The two “groups” being compared are altered continuously, with bad apples being culled from the select group and reassigned to the baseline or comparison group, along with all their recidivism. The two groups are different demographically, with selectees for the carrier group already 50 years old on average when they first enter the group, and probably with above-average incomes as well. (Permittees coincide with “Texas multiple handgun owners” demographically, so their median income is probably $75,000.) Conviction rates (justice system outcomes) can be skewed by race, by access to counsel, and by possible bias in favor of someone who is “licensed” to use a gun. Gun users now have their own customized legal framework (“stand your ground” etc.) which gives them a presumption of justification.

              Arrest rate would give a better picture, and finding a proper comparison group would tell you whether CHL holders are any more or less law-abiding than any other group of older white guys with good incomes.

          • “If you ever happen upon a mass shooting, chances are the only permit holder on the scene is the one slaughtering people.”

            In a gun-free zone (which you, obviously, want to see universally), you’re probably right.

          • My daughter, and 3 others, were the victims in the Federal Way, WA/Dennis Clark III shootings. He used 2 weapons: A .40 caliber semi-automatic gun (used on my daughter and 2 of the victims). Then, he heard the 3rd victim yell at a neighbor to call the police. Mr. Clark then returned to the apartment he shared, with my daughter, stepped over her body, got the other weapon he used, went to the bottom apartment and shot out the lock on the steel door of the last victim with a pistol grip Mossberg 500 pump shotgun. Shot him at point blank range. From what I have read, pump shotguns are preferred by the military and law enforcement. My daughter knew how to use a gun and owned one. That didn’t help her and, in the end, the fatal shot was to her skull as she tried to escape (she survived multiple gunshot wounds prior).

            • I’m sorry to hear that one of these incidents affected you so personally. I’ve been researching, commenting, blogging, and lobbying on this issue for some time, and I have often wondered how survivors or family members would react were they to discover that licensed concealed weapon carriers are at significantly elevated risk for committing this type of offense. Compared to your loss, it might seem like a trivial detail. I believe it is an important detail — one which might help guide future policymaking. I wish you well on your own path to healing, however much that can be, and whatever form it might take.

              • All I can do is watch and comment. Thank you for your respectful reply. I wish more could understand where those, who are now part of this “club”, are coming from instead of trying to make us feel like we don’t count or our feelings don’t matter….

      • I’d be worried too…I’d severely doubt the mental stability of someone whose willing to drop money on a Norinco and not a colt…

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