A little more than a week ago, I began a crusade to oppose SB11, more commonly referred to as campus carry.
Universities like Texas Tech University joined the gun-free movements with their own petition. Fifty faculty signed on almost immediately.
Based off of the “Gun Free UT” movement, which has garnered more than 6,000 signatures and hundreds of supporters, including entire academic departments, “Gun Free UH” has begun to gain momentum here in Houston.
From what I’ve gathered in my conversations with faculty, they are grateful someone is speaking up. They are nervous, too. They feel like sitting ducks. No one, they sense, has their backs.
At Faculty Senate meetings, I am told, there is nervous laughter among colleagues and morbid jokes are not uncommon.
“Maybe we should install a chemistry lab in every building,” joked one faculty member making light of the fact that some areas which made use of oxygen tanks would be off-limits to gun wielders, since a spark could ignite an explosive event.
There are safety issues involving the doors of classroom locks, windows that are permanently sealed and more. There is no clear or practical policy in place to deal with an active shooter situation.
A review of the UHPD website shows its current “training” against an active shooter consists of an offer to come to classes to show videos or PowerPoint presentations. Their tips can be boiled down to “run, hide, fight,” but how can this help an instructor in a classroom armed only with whiteboard markers when they are trapped inside with windows that do not open and doors that aren’t lockable from inside?
The fight or flee strategy did not help any of the students or instructors who’ve been slaughtered at any of the mass shootings – and all of whom did try to flee or hide.
In the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, the only kindergartner to survive of the nineteen gunned down did so by playing dead among her slain classmates who had been herded into a bathroom by their teacher in a desperate attempt to flee and hide from the killer.
In the recent Opaqua Community College case, at least one valiant soul, Chris Mintz, who is U.S. Army veteran, tried to fight and took seven bullets for his bravery.
He survived, but eight of his peers were slaughtered, and nine others were injured.
The one good guy with a gun on campus nearby was rightfully and sensibly too concerned with being mistaken by police as a shooter to get involved and kept his distance.
In less than a year, campus carry will become a reality. This new permissiveness allowing Concealed Handgun Licensees to roam freely about the campus isn’t likely to save lives any more than it did at UCC.
In fact, it may increase not only the risk of accidental shootings, but also have a stifling effect on how instructors hold class since some instructors already worry that certain topics may trigger negative reactions.
Shootings are not only unpredictable, but CHL holders are untrained and lack tactical focus and the control with which military and police are equipped.
Why does this rationale persist?
Because the myth of being a hero is every boy’s dream, and patriotism is enchanting.
Who doesn’t want to distinguish himself and save himself along with others to earn his laurels from the village townspeople? Our video games, movies and TV shows tell us this is a real possibility. Just point and shoot. Bad guy falls dead.
But, those are fantasies.
In the real world, people are dying, spilling real blood. The funerals and the heartaches are real. The criminals committing these atrocities are not actors in makeup and costumes but disturbed individuals.
Last year, according to the Texas DPS demographic data over 160 CHL applications were approved. That’s a four-fold increase of CHL licenses granted since 2004, and, according to HPD statistics, crimes have not decreased.
Since starting these efforts to protest Campus Carry, many regional directors of national Gun Control groups have reached out to me with offers to help. Among them is one women who, along with President and Chancellor Renu Khator, received a prestigious award at a recent luncheon for her national work to help end gun violence.
To improve my efforts, I have also joined a new intercollegiate group of students doing work on their campuses to decrease gun violence. One of our leaders is a woman whose mother was killed at Sandy Hook. She turned her grief outward.
Meanwhile, scholars from Georgia are wondering out loud about UT and UH’s liability issues. Texas is sorting through the process of implementing campus carry.
No student should ever be asked to compromise his sense of safety just so his peer or instructor can brag about his Second Amendment rights.
I welcome your interest and inquiries and hope that you will join our efforts. Please leave the holster off campus, though. We’re not in a Wild West show.
Alex Colvin is a history senior and administrator for the “Gun Free UH” group on Facebook.
It’s time to begin repealing the 2nd Amendment. Half measures dealing with co-existing causes such as mental health, flawed background checks, poor firearm training and increasing school security have solved nothing as thousands of innocent Americans are slaughtered every year due to gun violence and the number of active shooter incidents continues climbing. The savagery and damage wrought upon society by automatic guns far outweighs the meager gains and banal claims to traditionalism. Step 1: immediately nationalize firearm manufacturing, distribution and sale under executive order for the sake of national security. Make the federal government the sole source of firearm manufacture, distribution and sale to the public thro’ an independent governmental agency and criminalize all other sources of firearms, including but not limited to 3D printing. Step 2: limit the available firearm technology for sale to the public. Step 3: establish a $1 billion a year gun buy back program to begin slowly siphoning automatic firearms off the streets and raising the black market value of automatic firearms resulting in firearm hoarding. Step 4: After 25 years, begin confiscating all private caches of automatic firearms.
There isn’t a single country in Europe where the right to bear arms is enshrined in a national constitution, yet Europeans still legally hunt and secure their homes with firearms. The fact is the general public does not need constitutional protection in order to keep and bear firearms when carefully crafted statutory law exists, but lunatics do need the overbroad protections afforded by the 2nd Amendment to get their hands on the deadliest firearms even 2nd Amendment backers say are designed to make armies tremble with fear. Federal ownership of firearm manufacturers will protect manufacturers from the financial shock resulting from the loss of sales of fully automatic and semi-automatic firearms to the public. The temporary issuance of stock warrants to companies in exchange for the debts associated with idle equipment that will be scrapped, not unlike the recent federal bailouts of GM and Chrysler, will allow firearm manufacturers time to reorganize their business.
How many more American children need their blood spilled in sacrifice upon the false alter of the 2nd Amendment? The object of some’s worship is the very instrument that springs forth unfathomable pain and suffering upon too many American families today. Sandy Hook parents, Columbine parents, Virginia Tech parents, Umpqua parents and countless other families no longer countenance that their personal loss supports any higher national virtue. The only people whose liberty is protected by the 2nd Amendment are lunatics whose spiral downward provokes them to take liberties and as many young dreams along with them as possible using the deadliest means, an automatic firearm. It’s time to address the root cause of our national nightmare of gun violence once and for all. Repeal the 2nd Amendment.
I’m curious as to when you’re going to begin your campaign to repeal the 21st Amendment? Afterall, far morew people die due to alcohol than firearms every year. If that’s the criteria, shouldn’t repeal of the 21st Amendment be a much more urgent cause?
Have fun getting 3/4 of the states to ratify that change. There are already 8 states that allow constitutional carry, and that leaves 5 more to vote against it and the move will fail. I doubt it would even get the initial 2/3 it would need to be considered.
If we’re going to use Europe as an example, can we de-regulate the suppressors? It is rude to go shooting without one over there.
On the same thread, shooting is the 3rd most popular sport in the Czech Republic and they have a similar concealed carry system as US’s system. It’s shall-issue concealed carry permits, which is very similar to Texas’ carry system.
Exactly. The Czech system is very similar to Texas and we have crime rate lower than UK. The crime is really not about the CCP, because criminals by definition don’t care about laws.
Sign our petition: https://www.change.org/p/greg-abbott-texas-state-legislators-no-guns-in-our-classrooms-gun-free-uh
Alex, can you tell us how much experience you have with guns? Have you shot a gun? Ever owned one?
You don’t have to own a gun to know more guns will create more problems. It’s called common sense. Also, I own many, many guns so does that make my comments more valid?
Bobby, while I have never owned a gun, I have shot plenty as the result of my rural upbringing. Additionally, while I do believe in the Second Ammendment, I do not support concealed carry on university campuses as it is described today. It is tragic that our society is plagued with such malicious trend; however, I do believe that concealed carry on campuses is only bandaging a larger issue. Proper education is the only method by which such trends may cease to exist because simply put, concealed carry is not going to be enough persuade these individuals to not commit these actions. Yes, it would provide a medium of protection and thus confidence in security, but in all reality, I do not believe that the approval of concealed carry is going to elicit any additional heroic response that was not already present in an individual. Thus, the majority of students that did decide to carry would not actually provide this blanket protection that our government is looking for. Now, I will say that I would be more open to concealed carry on campus if mandatory student wide training (education) was implemented, so as a product of a rural community, I do see this rights usefulness with appropriate implementation.
I’ve never been shot by a gun; but I take it on good authority that it can hurt a lot and if done correctly can probably kill. I hope you’re not seriously suggesting that only gun owners understand the lethality of guns. I think those who lost their children and loved ones at Upaqua CC probably now know all they will ever need to know about guns. Your callous lack of humanity is breathtaking.
Your link still doesn’t work buddy. Oh wait, you want to exile those who disagree with your views. Good luck buddy.
Funny, it worked for the 300 or so additional petitioners we’ve gained since the column was published. Feeling left out? Sending you a gun-free hug.
The 160 CHL application in 2014 were for people living in the 77004 zip code — where UH Main is located. The crime stats are for the same police patrol area.
The writing here shows the naivete of your mentality towards carrying firearms. It is interesting to hear people become so vocal about the problems that campus carry will cause and how risky it will be… What about when you leave the campus? You are around people every day on the drive in and out of school, at the grocery store, at the mall etc. who are carrying concealed. Of the 50,869 criminal convictions in the entire state of Texas in 2013, 158 of those were CHL holders. License holders represented a tiny 0.31% of all convictions. The danger does not come from law abiding citizens who want to carry a firearm for their own defense. The purpose is not to “brag about second amendment rights”, it is to have the ability to have that last line of defense. Believing that “certain topics may trigger negative reactions” is a valid reason to prohibit firearms at schools is an overly emotional and irrational response.
You are just plain wrong Josh it is not just an emotional and irrational response. Everyday I read stories about gun ‘accidents’ where someone with a gun injures someone else by ‘accident’. I went hunting with a dozen friends the other weekend. A few have a CHL. Everyone of us has cancelled their NRA membership.
Care to point us to one such story where the accident occurred while the person was carrying concealed?
I’m sure you have heard of Google. I did and found thousands of them.
http://www.khou.com/story/news/2015/09/27/one-man-injured-after-carjacking-shooting-at-gas-station/72923278/
http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/news/first-day-of-new-gun-law-leads-to-arrest/article_a92ca4ba-f648-5239-ada0-128f5627bbfa.html
But none of this, much less your points, have much to do with the issue of guns on campuses. You and Josh are speaking as if the main objection has to do with injury caused by guns. This is as much a state budget issue as a safety issue.
Robert S. Flores. U of AZ No accident. He murdered his professors i view of his student peers. Nursing school. Liked to brag about his CHL permit. Brought over 200 rounds of ammunition. Ex-vet.
in 2015 we’ve over 200 mass shootings. To a sane mind, two or three would be enough. Two the diseased mind, not even a staggering number of nearly 300 is enough to convince them such a number is clearly an epidemic. Not even 300. To some there will never be enough bloodshed. There will never be too many guns, or too many victims. There will only be the carnal need for more guns, more deaths, and more defence of their insidious appetite for guns and their unholy worship of them. Such is the mind of those willing to sacrifice their fellows upon the alter of gun lust. A mind incapable to reason.
It is irrational when you really look at it objectively. I’m a pro gun rights supporter, but I don’t need to be in the NRA. I think the problem is that you are worried about the “what if” a little bit too much. Like I said in my other post, you are around firearms all the time outside of campus, and of course there is some inherent risk. You even say yourself that you went hunting, so you must understand that handled safely, a gun is not a problem. An overwhelming majority of CHL holders know this and they practice good safety. Problem is, that some risk is associated with almost everything we do. There’s plenty of risk of getting harmed by someone when you go out on the roads and drive, etc. If someone is going to come onto a campus intent on doing harm, they are simply not going to be deterred by having it continue to be a gun free zone. I just honestly can’t seem to understand your rationale behind why someone who qualifies and does it legally shouldn’t be able to carry. You also say you have found many examples of firearms accidents by carriers, you can also look and find many examples of citizens who were armed and because of that were able to defend themselves or other people from harm and they did so. We shouldn’t just take away that option from people because of the possibility of an accident. Just like we don’t stop people from driving because some people get in auto accidents.
When I leave campus, I’m not expected to pay the liability insurance of various retailers and mall vendors, all of whom are private businesses, much less to pay for the safety measures that employers must provide, by law, in workplaces in which there may be guns. Whereas Texas taxpayers are now expected to pay for these increased costs faced by the state university system as a result of SB11. Costs which at a minimum, the state has already determined will cost at least $47 million. Money which will generally go to various businesses that supported SB11. It is a scam. I seriously doubt the writer of this column is the one who is being naive.
Can I see your source for $47 million in insurance cost increases?
I didn’t say just for insurance costs; I said for safety measures (e.g., safe gun storage on campuses, signage, training, etc.) Here is a source: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Campus-carry-would-cost-Texas-colleges-millions-6094445.php
Ah, that fallacy.
Ah, that fallacy…
“According to UT-Austin’s fiscal note, which estimates expenses associated with campus carry, the policy would not cost the University any additional funds”
How would it cost the UT system millions when UT Austin would need nothing to impliment it?
The costs associated with campus carry there are almost all due to “increased security and for gun storage on campus”. Why are we providing gun safes and manning storage places for these firearms? Shouldn’t the carriers themselves pay for all additional expenses incurred from the implementation?
What increased training do the police need? They’re trained to deal with illegal guns on campus, why would those that are legally carried and concealed increase their training?
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/2015/02/26/if-passed-campus-carry-could-bring-cost-ut-system-39-million
I do not teach in Texas, so I can’t speak to the specific budget process of of its university system. But I can think of reasons why that sort of thing happens. For instance, UT might not need funds to implement it because it it will be paid for out of designated statewide fund. Those sorts of things aren’t uncommon. For instance, my own campus was able to build its library at at time that as a campus we were not allowed to increase our budget to do so, but needed funding came out of a special fund for system-wide urgent projects.
I’m also not familiar with what campus police in Texas are saying. But I know of concern among campus police whom I know here and have read statements from elsewhere that there is concern that more guns equal more risk. Thus, it is likely that they will request additional armor and that many will at least use this as an opportunity to ask for a raise.
Although the exact requirements can vary by state, and can be further affected by provisions made within new gun legislation itself, the reasons states generally will have to pay for some storage, signage, and other security precautions have to do with existing OSHA and workers compensation regulations requiring things of employers who allow employees to have guns. There are additional existing regulations regarding work environments that may put employees in contact with firearms. Here is a link to some very basic info about this. However, of course it doesn’t take into account any provisions that SB11 may have made to further protect Texas colleges and universities from such liability. http://www.bakerdonelson.com/files/Uploads/Documents/Guns_at_the_Workplace_5-520-4933.pdf
Colleges are also required to carry liability insurance–not only to cover the issue of liability in terms of workplace accidents and violence (which some of the gun legislation does provide employers some protection from) but also to cover the risk of lawsuits. The concern that parents of students may complain that a particular campus isn’t providing adequate safety precautions or training is seen as an increased risk in terms of lawsuits. Faculty and/or student lawsuits based on First Amendment vs. Second Amendment rights is another. The possibility of such lawsuits may increase the cost of liability insurance.
You are of course correct that the risks of illegal guns on campus already exist. However, those involve different regulations than those for employers who expressly allow guns in the workplace.
Another possible cost has to do with accreditation. SACS, the organization that accredits colleges and universities in Texas and ten other states, requires that in order to be accredited, an “institution takes reasonable steps to provide a healthy, safe, and secure environment for all members of the campus community.” It is not known yet whether SACS will address the issue of campus carry or establish criteria for determining safety as it relates to the presence of firearms on campus, but should it make this an accreditation issue, there could be added costs there too.
More guns is not the solution.
It’s really not about more guns.
Less legal guns are not the solution.
This author is ignoring the fact that concealed carry on campus is in fact perfectly legal now and has been for years. The only thing SB11 does is force lawful citizens to disarm to attend classes, thereby turning classrooms into free fire zones for any criminal that cares to kill. SB11 would remove this free fire zone and make it possible for an armed intruder to be stopped before a mass murder can happen.
1) There must be a typo here because these two sentences contradict each other: ” The only thing SB11 does is … thereby turning classrooms into free fire zones ” and “SB11 would remove this free fire zone.” Really those last two sentences say opposite things. Clarify which you mean? 2) You say, “the only thing SB11 does is force lawful citizens to disarm to attend classes.” No. Could you clarify why you have the impression that this is the case? Thanks.
The gun free zone myth was hatched in 2013 by debunked amature researcher, Dave Bunker, proving a so-called “study” attempting to show “gun free” zones are killing zones. His data was falsified, and methodology not empirically standard or analyzed. It was his handiwork which first appeared on his blog, The Daily Anarchist in 2013 and which was seized upon by the NRA and has been parrotted by them and their pro-gun allies ever since. Debunked by actual social scientist, Dr. Peter Blair, TSU.[1]
[1] J. Peter Blair, et all, “Active Shooter Events from 2000 to 2012” January,
2014, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, https://leb.fbi.gov/2014/january/active-shooter-events-from-2000-to-2012
“They feel like sitting ducks.” Anyone in a classroom where handguns are banned should feel like sitting ducks. Do you really think that anyone that wants to do you harm is going to be deterred because they can’t legally carry their firearm into a classroom?
At least the change in the law will allow people to be able to defend themselves.
I teach in college classrooms every day. I am as prepared to defend myself against such things I can be. I have pepper spray, a knife, and a couple other things, including features of some classrooms on my campus that most people have no idea exist. The last thing I need is random students in my rooms pulling out guns.
Have you ever considered what it would be like to be in a knife fight, do you train with that knife?
Do you train to defend yourself with that knife?
At this point in time, what safety measures do you have to make sure there are no guns that enter your classroom?
Obviously it is possible to sneak a gun into places at any time, regardless of the law. A criminal wanting to do so will regardless. I’d prefer not to add to that risk by having other students, who are often under the influence, mentally ill, stressed and upset, etc. also be allowed to carry. Mass-shootings in classrooms are relatively rare. Fights in dorms and such are not. And, yes, I have trained some to defend myself, but just a little. I have also attended the active-shooter training my campus provides.
What school did you train with? I want to work on my knife fighting, who would you recommend?
also, these aren’t just ordinary students that would be allowed to carry. They would be licensed, trained, background checked, mental heath history checked, and at least 21 years of age.
These concealed carry holders are 11 times more law-abiding than the gerneral public. In 2013, there were only 158 convicted from a pool of 1.3 million, that’s pretty crazy odds. 13,000 non-licensed people were convicted in 2013.
I did not claim to be an expert knife fighter. My comment above clearly says the opposite: that I have trained “just a little.” But I was responding to the post about being a “sitting duck,” and all I was saying was that I don’t necessarily feel like a sitting duck. I have trained enough that I can open my knife with ease and I’m prepared to do so. I have no delusions about my ability in a knife fight, but I am ready to rush a gunman with a knife. I am better with my pepper-spray, but even there I’m no expert. But I have done what I can to prepare myself for the event of a classroom shooting, including taking the training offered by my campus police, which is more than I suspect many on the gun-rights boards I visit have done.
Most college students are older than 21 (a third are over 25), so that age limit has little to do with it. At the same time, most of them are young enough that they might not have the sort of mental health history that would prevent them from passing a background check. For example, most people with schizophrenia don’t begin experiencing symptoms, much less get a diagnosis until well into their 20s. And although they have to pass testing requirements, they aren’t required to train in a live-shooter scenario, which most experts say is what would matter in a classroom situation.
But so what? It’s not as if mass shootings in classrooms is the most likely scenario of guns causing injury, intended or otherwise, on campuses. Those statistics you give–I’m not sure I understand what argument they are supposed to be answering. I have no doubt that most concealed carry holders are law-abiding and responsible. I haven’t seen anyone argue otherwise. Similarly, it is obvious that criminals don’t care about gun laws and that they will always find a way to get guns if they want to. So that risk is a constant–that won’t change with campus carry. What will change is that now in addition to that risk, there are additional guns on campus. Guns that might go off accidentally in dorms, be stolen out of dorm rooms, fired at a drunken frat party or used in a band hazing, or whatever.
And of course, those things most likely won’t be done by those with the concealed carry permits. I agree with you on that. The problem is the other guns that might be harder to stop. It is a common occurrence that campus police somewhere spot a gun in a car or being carried (if you don’t believe me, start asking to see the Annual Safety Report that all campuses must publish every year, in accordance with federal law) or that some school is put on lockdown when other students see another student with a gun (at least three incidents of that made national news just in the past month). When police and fellow students must assume that a person seen with a gun has the right to do so, they are less likely to ask (especially in places like here in Georgia, where police are explicitly forbidden by HB 60 to ask to see a weapons permit even if they see a person carrying a gun.) So the problem isn’t the concealed carry permits or the people who have them–it’s the other situations that extending concealed carry to colleges will cause.
Every mass college campus shooting that has occurred the the last 50 years was a by a student at the college who owned the weapons. One was an ex-vet with a CHL. All of them shot their professors first, then their classmates or peers. Are you so deranged to think that a college student — just because he has a CHL licence — will never cross the line from “law-abiding” to mass murderer? Every single one of the college mass murderers did. Every one — except Chis-Harper owned their weapons. They used the element of surprise. Two were grad students. What guarantee do you have that some kid with a gun and a licence can act quickly to prevent another mass slaughter. You’d have to be looney to belive that.
Can I have the citation for that–that every college shooting was by a student at the college? I’ve been thinking this is true, but haven’t seen it for sure…
You won’t. It’s from my own review of the cases. Took me several hours. What I found so alarming was that the pattern had never been published. You won’t find it cited in that way. I don’t know why but it’s quite apparent. That’s what makes it so scary. Only Amy Bishop and Chris Harper-Mercer did not own their guns. But every mass shooter (except Bishop) on a campus shooter was male, a gun owner, and a student where the shootings too place.These were horrendous crimes of both opportunity and familiarity. The best way to cite it is to say, “a careful analysis of publishes sources shows an unequivocal pattern that ….”
You’re a little bit paranoid if you think your students are those who are gonna pull out guns.
Why? Besides the fact that the Oregon shooter was actually a student enrolled in that class, I myself have had two students convicted of murder (one with a gun). A year ago, two students on my campus committed suicide with guns on campus during daylight hours. My college once assigned me police protection because of threats a student had made (he got expelled but that took a couple of weeks). And students do lots of things all the time. One of my colleagues had two guys in his class get in a total fistfight. Another had a girl pulled out by her arm by an angry boyfriend. One had a student leave campus and go to the Walmart across the street and do tens of thousands of dollars in the television section with a baseball bat. A colleague in another state recently told me of an adjunct there who had a student jump up and bite him. And I could go on and on about other things, like the number of students who are diagnosed with schizophrenia and such. And I teach at a nice school, with nice students, in a relatively affluent area. These are just everyday things. Even if they don’t always make the papers. Especially since FERPA forbids us from talking about many of them.
Maybe that’s a general problem in whole Western world today. Lack of respect and self-control. I couldn’t even imagine to physically attack a teacher (I was czech high school student in 1990s). We were fighting our peers, but when teacher came it was like the Deus ex machina. And I couldn’t even imagine what my parents would have done if I even verbally attacked teacher. Apparently times are changing and not for better. However, I don’t think that campus carry laws would make any change (at least teachers will be legally allowed to defend themselves).
I also have to advice you, don’t bring knife to gun fight.
Thank you for responding in way that indicates you actually read what I wrote and thought about it. I don’t necessarily agree with you that times are just changing for the worse (even Plato gave his version of the “kids today” speech), but I do think every culture/moment in history has its own problems to deal with. Problems that are more likely to be solved by actually talking to each other, like you have done here, instead of just repeating talking points. (And I bought my knife mostly for other reasons, so I’m not really carrying it into a gunfight. But I’m carrying it anyway, so I might as well mention it, if for no other reason that the glass-breaker on its end might be helpful escaping through classroom windows that don’t open. I think my pepper-spray is more likely to help. But I also know that it will likely be of little use if ever faced by a gunman intent on killing a class. I’m just don’t think that most average gunowners could do much either in that scenario–not enough to outweigh the other costs and risks that campus carry entails. But, again, I respect your opinion.)
I don’t think that we can solve problems by talking to each other. Texas lawmakers made a decision which I think won’t make any harm and might do some good, because carrying a firearm might increase your chances to defend yourself (even if the advantage of ambush will be still there so I don’t think it’s the ultimate solution to crime).
You think that other costs and risks might outweigh possible benefits. I am aware of them, but the very same arguments were presented by gun control advocates in 1990s and 2000s when gun control laws were eased in may states. Gun ownership went up and crime went down – it’s hard to tell that it was precisely because of the rise in gun ownership, however, one can easily make an argument that it didn’t do any harm and the presented potential costs of that didn’t materialize. I can assume that the same story will be this case. I don’t even think many students will carry. Firearms are relatively expensive and students are usually poor unless they have rich parents.
I agree that we can’t solve problems just by talking about them. But I think no hope lies in insulting opponents or just repeating talking points, much less non sequitur statistics. And I recognize that you are not doing that (for which I am grateful), and I think you see that I am not either. We both want safety for us and our students. I disagree with you on many points (e.g., many of the poorest students, such as ones from my hometown, have the most guns because of hunting, and I myself am just beginning to see more and more, after 20 +years teaching at various colleges, how much of state budget issues I was naive to). I also don’t know why you think that statistics show that crime declined where gun ownership went up–most things I’ve seen say otherwise. Not even close. But we are not on opposite sides. Talking is at least better than not.
Generaly in US:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/05/14/disarming-realities-as-gun-sales-soar-gun-crimes-plummet/
The article quotes two studies:
One set of statistics was compiled by the U.S. Department of Justice. The other was reported by the Pew Research Center.
You might be familiar with John Lott’s research which came under heavy scrutiny.
I can say more guns => less crime based on these studies. One might blame powerful gun lobby in US (NRA), but there’s also powerful gun-control lobby (billionaire Michael Bloomberg, a lot of media personalities, Hollywood celebrities etc.) which more than enough compensate NRA lobbying.
I can point out at spike in inner city violence this year – the so called Ferguson effect – when police is under heavy pressure from leftist mayors and consequently is less active in crime prevention. I see a good policing as a better tool to reduce crime, but I also can easily claim more guns doesn’t cause more crime. Hence I am generally against gun control.
College:
I don’t know why college environment should be any different than general public space. However, this is only my assumption and it’s not based on any evidence or experience, while you have the experience. I can’t bring firearm into building, but I can have one in my car on parking lot or when I walk outside in streets. The current law motivates me to leave my gun in my car so that someone can steal it. I think it’s safer if I have my gun always under control.
David, personally I have come to see this not as a gun rights issue, but as a college campus safety issue. Personally, I have taken a stand in that I refuse to advocate or support any gun regulations generally. I also refuse to engage in conversations that treat college shootings as if they are in the same category as movie theater or elementary mass shootings. Because the are not. My issue is guns on campus–not gun rights and not mass shootings. Those of us who work or live on college campuses shouldn’t let anyone conflate those things. We are dealing with different laws, regulations, budget processes, academic freedom issues, etc., etc….than those other scenarios. All I want is for us–everyone–to at least make these distinctions before we make decisions that make things worse than they are.
And I would add that this has generally been the case in almost all college shootings. Unlike mass-shootings in places like movie theaters and elementary schools, the shootings on campus have not been random acts of violence committed against strangers by an outsider looking for a gun-free zone. They’ve been committed by people who are angry with others on campus generally or as the result of a specific altercation. E.g. the Oregon shooter shot his classmates and instructor, with whom he’d already had a disagreement. The one later that week in Arizona resulted from some sort of fight between four guys in fraternity housing. The professor at Delta State in Mississippi shot a colleague in his office in a tenure dispute (which has happened before elsewhere). And let’s not forget when someone shot his entire dissertation committee at what was supposed to be his defense. Etc.
http://murderpedia.org/male.F/f/flores-robert-stewart.htm
That is exacty who “pulled out guns” in every college campus shooting on record. Every one was a student at the school he attended; every one generally shot the prof first; two were grad students. One was an ex-vet. All were males. And in the case of Amy Bishop (the only female) she shot three of her colleagues t a faculty meeting. Campus mass shootings are crimes of opportunity and familiarity. These were not strangers. And they used the element of surprise. No one can protect against that. The one survivor in the VA Tech shooting survived for 8 years as a paraplegic from the neck down. She died in 2008 from complications. Please don’t tell me you think someone who can’t predict the unpredictable will be victorious.That’s lunacy. But the pattern is abundantly clear. Weaponized students are an accident or killing spree waiting to happen. Do you know how many students come to class hung-over, sleep deprived, or stressed? Are these the people you think fit to handle a loaded weapon? Most of them can’t handle a loaded question in a lecture without struggling and you think, in a surprise attack where seconds count , some student is going to fumble with a holster and kill the bad guy just because they’ve spent a little time at a range shooting at an unmoving paper target? E-gads!
Hm, you are unwittingly make the case pro campus carry in this contribution. If students at US colleges are so dangerous then I would like to be armed while being on campus. Frank Goodman has pepper spray and knife, someone else might consider other protective tools. I agree with you that no one can protect me against crimes of familiarity and opportunity. I would add no one except myself. And I know that I have a higher chance (still pretty low though) to defend myself with a tool (pepper spray, knife, taser, handgun, shotgun, etc.) than bare handed. The current policies tell me that I can’t use a firearm even if I am, based on what both Frank and you claim in their contributions, in very hostile environment, I am postdoc at Rice btw so these decisions personally affects me.
I got my PhD at Rice.
The “protective tools” jargon is straight out of the Students for Concealed Carry Handbook, (I have a copy,) which provides their supporters with scripted retorts to those opposed to Campus Carry. You people can’t even think for yourself. You have to have your thinking done for you by people you don’t even know, on a computer somewhere. And none of their so-called “evidence” is backed by empirical studies. It’s all just propaganda which they cobbled together and put in a form for a 6th-grade reading level. Sad.
Yet I am not connected with “Students for Concealed Carry Handbook” at all. Heck I didn’t even know that such a group exists. The term protective tools came entirely from my mind and I stand behind it, because it’s precise. You remind me our communists who saw enemies even among themselves. The weather is becoming pleasant in Houston, get a life.
Funny; its the jargon they use. No it’s not originally yours. They also like to use ad hominems when they can’t think of anything original to say. Communist, liberal, socialist, and pretty much any pejorative they can think of gets dished out. Thanks for playing, “I’m just another NRA puppet and I can’t think for myself..”
You have apparently problem with reading. I didn’t say it’s originally mine. I said the term came from my mind. Two people can come to the same conclusions independently. Get a life.
Again: every mass campus shooting was done by a student. Except Amy Bishop. can you predict which student will strike next? Do you have the precision marksmanship, the focus, the cat-like reflected needed to take out an active shooter from a hundred yards? Do you think any 20 year-old with a few hours training with an unmoving paper target can? Unless you’re prepared to become both clairvoyant and psychic — with an unnatural ability to both see through a backpack and predict when the next student will decided to unload on his professors and peers, I suggest you work to keep guns off campus rather than heap fuel onto the fire.
You already sound like a broken record. Read my discussion with Frank Goodman. No one can keep guns off campus. You have better chance against active shooter with protective tools whatever they are than bare handed. Why do you think police is armed?
Except the “best” protective tool, by your definition, is the one that, statistically, is the one most often mishandled, To a sane mind makes it the least effective. Would you put your baby in a crib if you knew the crib was likely to fall apart? But you think a gun, which statistically is more often misused by it’s possessors, is his best weapon of choice for defence? The passing rate to achieve a licence after the shooting range test in most states is roughly a C- Where is the precision needed is a defensive situation, if the dexterity needed isn’t required to obtain a weapon? One might as well be arguing to pass Campus Carry for pencils or feather dusters rather than guns. for all the precision in shooting those being allowed to be armed will bring to a defensive scenario. More likely they will injure themselves, others, or get shot trying to play hero. This is the real danger. This is the problem and why Campus Carry is lunacy.
Now, the last 3 sentences are legitimate concerns. You think you know better than the CCP holders whether they will be able to stop a potential shooter. I think they don’t want to be shot so they will be careful. And that’s the root of our disagreement. Good night.
“Careful” is not what they are being in their arguments to suit up. What they want is a confrontation to show how brave they are. That is the exact opposite of what a “careful” person would do. A “careful” judicious person would consider the fact that he does not possess the dexterity to do the job which paid and highly-trained sharpshooters such as the police and Swat are. The failure rate accounting for people misusing and misfiring guns is too high to be considered a measure of how “careful” they are by any metric. Students with a CC permit would be no exception, particularly given their predilection for impulsiveness — the very last thing you want with someone wielding a gun.
David–It’s not about what the concealed-carry holders think. Where is that even coming from? Why don’t you look at what virtually EVERYONE with actual active-shooter training (ranging from the military to the FBI to the Secret Service to virtually EVERYONE with SWAT experience to Baltimore police to campus police say in regards to college campus shootings)? Why don’t you look at what actual campus police in other states have said about similar legislation??? Seriously–do you need sources? Are you just going on and on about this without even paying attention to what anyone with actual relevant expertise (e.g., anyone in law enforcement, military, or campus police) have to say???
This is the argument I understand the least. Yes, obviously, no one can keep criminals with bad intent from bringing guns on campus. Duh, Sherlock. By definition, that is the constant. Which means that any person with any understanding of the scientific method, or of anything like, should be pretty much trained to disregard and to focus on the variables instead. Usually, when I hear pro-gun/gun-fetishists argue that “criminals will still get guns,” I laugh it off as the talk of stupid or poor people whose high-school science classes failed to teach them what a “constant” is. But you seem educated enough to know better. Meanwhile, you are referencing Lott, whose methodology/findings even you yourself can’t even mention in a sentence without apologizing for. Furthermore, you go out of your way to identify yourself as an immigrant, un-inculcated by Western/US gun culture or Millennial forms of rebellion, as if to distance yourself with some weird sort of naïveté about the very issue you keep posting about. What is your deal?
P.S. Rice is a private school. They can opt out They have no dog in this fight. And a bullet doesn’t care about your academic credentials, and neither do I.
Shooters don’t care whether their gun is legally or illegally in a building.
What do you people not understand. The law is passed and will be implemented. Saying you oppose it will have no effect. The best you can hope for is to repeal it during the next legislative session and that won’t happen.
I don’t live in Texas, so I don’t know what will happen there, but I don’t think the best hope would be to repeal the legislation. I would think it would be: 1) a lawsuit by faculty and students alleging that guns inhibit freedom of speech in classrooms and that given that the primary purpose of classrooms is arguably to facilitate the exchange of ideas, there the First Amendment outweighs the Second; that sort of constitutional challenge would have a better than average chance of working its way up to higher courts and could delay implementation of SB11 with a court-ordered stay, 2) parents and/or staff opposed to the law could file hundreds of lawsuits making various negligence claims based on instances of campuses not being in compliance with various workplace safety regulations for employers who allow firearms; the financial cost of responding to enough lawsuits and addressing specific structural safety requirements could cause the state to delay implementation indefinitely, or 3) (admittedly, less likely) 3) SACS, the major accreditation agency, perhaps could be pressured to pull accreditation from schools that allow concealed carry based on its existing safety requirements, which would be a huge financial loss to the state. But I think some of this debate and interest in SB11 isn’t coming from those hoping to change this particular law. It’s coming from outsiders like myself in other states (e.g., Wisconsin, Florida, Georgia) where colleges and universities are trying to figure out how to better position themselves against the possibility of similar legislation.
Pro-campus carry? Join our group, we’re freely open and not a closed group.
https://www.facebook.com/SCCUH
‘No student should ever be asked to compromise his sense of safety just
so his peer or instructor can brag about his Second Amendment rights.’ In this statement you make a very good point and a very poor point at the same time. ‘No student should ever be asked to compromise his sense of safety’ Does this include the students who feel safer with their concealed handguns? 85% of UofH students commute to school so where would you like the CHL holders to leave their guns? At home, in their car, or just get rid of them altogether? So someone else will feel safer you want me to put aside my rights.
‘so his peer or instructor can brag about his Second Amendment rights.’ The last time I looked the Second Amendment covered all law abiding Americans. Which came about because the people had guns.
I will brag about and defend my second amendment right anytime I want and you will never know if I am carrying concealed or not.
As a history major whose spent a year studying American colonial culture with an emphasis on the 18th century and the American Revolution, with one of the nations’s bast scholars of the period, I suggest you first learn to wear a powdered wig, to write with a quill, and learn to crap in a chamber pot before you start mouthing off about what you *think* you know about the 2nd Amendment. Trust me, you’re clueless. No, none of the students slaughtered in any of the campus mass shootings since 1966 — all of whom died at the hand of a peer and fellow student and who each owned the murder weapon they used, — knew the murderers were carrying in their backpacks either. To the sick, destructive mind, stealth has it’s privileges.
Hmm… secret group. Concerned about ‘infiltration’ from Students for Concealed Carry on Campus…..
Here at Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, we share our information openly and freely with anyone, and we pledge to be transparent, open and honest with our surrounding community.
Hmmm. SCC UH Chapter members 2X tried to infiltrate our group. I have no interest in your divide and conquer strategy or your posting wars. And its spin off, C-4 (Coogs for Campus Carry) is not “open.” But most of the stuff on CCS is from your national mother ship, which is an NRA front group. Everyone knows that. Its their directions you follow and their dog whistle you respond to when you swarm comment sections, UH surveys about guns, or any public forum which calls for an end to gun violence. The SCC handbook is a collection of prefabricated replies to its members (I have a copy,) who think they can “win” an argument with a person concerned with gun violence by regurgitating manufactured replies. Sad. You don’t even think for yourselves. You’re just little programed robots who parrot each other in a live or internet echo chamber.
Interesting discussion ! For what it’s worth , if people is looking for a service to merge are interested in merging of , my business partner used a tool here http://goo.gl/zuQwW6