Guns are here.
Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 11 into law in May 2015 after promising to sign any campus carry legislation that crossed his desk. S.B.11 goes into effect Monday, and anyone with a license to carry a handgun may bring it — concealed — to any 4-year public college campus in Texas.
Junior colleges have exactly one more year to nail down their own campus policies before all public universities in Texas will implement campus carry. Many private schools chose to opt out except for Amberton University in Garland.
This is a guide to explain students’ rights and rules in this new age of guns on campus.
Exclusion Zones
One of the provisions of S.B. 11 allows presidents of higher education institutions to establish restrictions and regulations about where students, faculty, staff and visitors can carry handguns. However, the bill stated that these restrictions cannot “have the effect of generally prohibiting license holders from carrying concealed handguns.”
In line with the bill’s requirements, University of Houston President and Chancellor Renu Khator developed a Campus Carry Work Group to craft those regulations and determine which parts of campus would be gun-free. The group also determined standards for on-campus gun storage and procedures for those who choose to carry.
After the group wrote a draft, the University held several town hall meetings to gather comments and concerns before presenting the document to the Board of Regents for final approval.
A combination of other state laws governing where guns aren’t allowed and opinions from students plus faculty on where guns are appropriate in a college setting led to a set of guidelines. Any University building which met the guidelines could apply for official designation as an “exclusion zone” where no person could carry.
Most buildings that achieved that status said their building was “frequently used by minor children” or “school groups.” Vice President of Administration and Finance Jim McShan had ultimate authority over which areas on campus could be exclusion zones.
UH won’t allow guns in any residence halls except Calhoun Lofts (with some exceptions in Cougar Village I and II). This is different in comparison to other universities: Texas A&M University plans to allow concealed handguns in all residence halls, University of Texas at Austin will only allow concealed carry in what’s typically called “married student housing” and Rice University chose to remain gun-free.
Bringing Your Gun to Campus
UH Police Department estimates that 1,401 students, faculty and staff will have a License to Carry that allows them a concealed gun on campus. Residents who don’t live in Calhoun Lofts and commuters will need to find a location to store their handgun while not in class.
License to Carry holders have three options: store the gun in a locked compartment in a locked car, drop off the gun at a secure storage area or place the gun in a gun safe or other locked box that meets the University’s gun safety guidelines.
The only available secure storage area on campus is at UHPD, but they said other locations may be established.
UHPD suggests entering through the south entrance of the building and notifying an officer that you need assistance via a lobby phone. An officer will then verify your LTC and bring you to a bulletproof “securing” room to put your handgun into a safe with a fingerprint locking mechanism. Be sure to keep the card the officer gives you to pick up the gun later.
UHPD said they expect the drop off and pick up procedures to take 5 minutes each time. LTC holders can drop off or pick up their handgun any time or any day, as per state law. This means students, faculty and staff can store handguns overnight.
Calhoun Lofts LTC holders and faculty who wish to store guns in their offices must follow University gun safe guidelines. The chosen safe must meet Underwriters Laboratories Residential Security Container rating standards or feature a secure non-key locking mechanism and exterior walls made of 16-gauge steel.
Handguns are allowed in any classroom that’s not part of a broader exclusion zone. Only UH Department of Public Safety staff and other UHPD officers are permitted to ask students if they are carrying a concealed handgun or if they have an LTC.
Open Carry
Concealed carry of firearms, when done correctly, looks the same way it sounds. UHPD said a properly stored concealed weapon shouldn’t be visible in any way. Concealed handguns are permitted in classrooms of buildings that aren’t otherwise exclusion zones.
Open carry of firearms, however, will remain illegal on any public university campus in Texas. If someone is openly carrying a firearm, meaning that you can see the gun, they may or may not be in the wrong. Only intentionally revealed handguns are “grounds for disciplinary actions,” according to UHPD.
Students should report any concealed carry policy violations, ranging from open carry to improper gun storage, to the UHDPS.
Click the map below to see where concealed carry is allowed, where there are exclusion zones and which buildings have partial exclusion. Click the building to see which rooms are exclusion zones.
What a joke, 4 hours and a license to kill makes me feel real safe!
I would like to thank you for demonstrating the ignorance of a Progressive Plantation serf.
Now run along child, back to your safe space.
Bravo Flame. Bravo. ***DAVID*** is a child, and should be treated as such.
It is truly sad that they project their own deficiencies and fears. If left untreated then it becomes full blown delusions which creates major mental health issues when they come up against reality.
Leah Nash, you forgot the part about passing an FBI background check in your “checklist.” The people who pass the background check are not who you need to be worried about. They are proven law abiding citizens. Could you pass? http://codes.findlaw.com/tx/government-code/gov-t-sect-411-172.html
Anyone who is frightened about allowing CHL/LTC licensed persons on campus shouldn’t leave their house. They (CHL/LTC persons) have been walking amongst you in Texas since 1995.
I mean, don’t you think the DC realized that was included as part of the checklist step for the online application? And you’re acting very weird about this article seeing as surprisingly this one doesn’t even show much liberalism.
They know no other reaction except to spew vitriol and disinformation. What can you expect from people who use another person’s likenesses to be malicious. Standard gun zealotry reactions. Some of the commentators have made a career out of monopolizing comment sections with disinformation and bizarre intimidation attempts. You have to wonder at the kind of emotional atrophy of people who thinks cyber bullying is the same as wining a disagreement. And we’re suppose to trust them with a loaded weapon? I wouldn’t trust them with anything more lethal than a water pistol.
Michah Johnson and Omar Mateen BOTH passed the NICS background checks, as have many people who then use their weapons to harm others. To think passing the flimsy NICS background check is a guarantee that the gun owners cannot then use his weapon to hurt others is to be either incredibly naive, deliberately misleading, ill-informed, or all three. The “training and testing” required to acquire a CHL in Texas is incredibly flimsy. To try to use the words training, tested, or bk checks as if they are unassailably infallible is to not see the reality for what it is when it comes to CHL licensing requirements in Texas. Secondly, Texas has reciprocity with many states whose CHL permitting requirements are even weaker (in some cases non-existent) than they are here. Get a grip.
Sorry alex colvin and other rabid leftists, we win. Now, watch as you notice no changes whatsoever to campus life.
Lmao, nice profile pic
The commentor, “Bodacious Jones” has misappropriated my likeness as his avatar in his Discus account without my consent. I will be notifying the Disqus administrators of this site with a screen shot of the avatar and his malicious comments bearing my name. Consider this a demand that he remove said avatar for violation of Disqus Community Standards and engaging in online harassment.
A. Colvin.
As a foreigner unaccustomed to US gun culture, I am confused as to the purpose of admitting weapons on campus. Is it so there would be armed people on hand to take on a maniac? Or, is it a simple demonstration of the ‘right’ to possess a gun?
I’m not sure I’d be comfortable having to rely upon amateurs for protection and foresee the possibility of either a gun being stolen by a criminal or the ‘law-abiding’ owner turning feral for some reason.
If however it’s simply an ‘on-principle’ decision, are those principles worth the risks just mentioned?
Hey Fudge … what country are you from? North Korea?
Chicago Tribune: 9 Dead, 52 shot over weekend
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-weekend-shootings-20160815-story.html
Does anyone have the wounded or killed numbers from UH CHLers over the past week?