Texas Lawmakers Pass a Bill Allowing Guns at Colleges

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/us/texas-lawmakers-approve-bill-allowing-guns-on-campus.html

by el_duderino • 11 years ago

30 66 11 years ago

shirro2• 11 years ago

I need a browser plugin that replaces guns with teddy bears. Because outside of hunting, sport, policing or warfare I don't know that guns have much of a role in society. On campus they would seem to replace a thumb in the mouth or a plush toy in the hand of someone with major insecurities.

afarrell2• 11 years ago

So what are your thoughts on http://web.mit.edu/mitprc/www/index.html ?

knorby• 11 years ago

Doesn't range shooting count as sport?

shirro2• 11 years ago

Totally in favour of students learning how to shoot guns or bows or fence with swords. Why wait for college? With proper supervision these are all appropriate at high school.

A campus should be inclusive and non-intimidating. If you want women, minorities, foreign students to feel comfortable and secure, then arming self-entitled white males to strut around campus with deadly weapons for no reason other than pandering to their own deep insecurities is not the way to do it.

dropit_sphere3• 11 years ago

For that matter, crypto too. What, do they have something to hide?

lfuller• 11 years ago

I don't believe you can honestly compare hiding one's own communications for the sake of privacy with carrying a wartime weapon in a non-hostile public place.

jboggan4• 11 years ago

I think this makes sense. At least in my own experience attending a university in a high crime area, there were a number of students who legally owned firearms (off campus storage), had obtained a concealed carry permit from the state, and practiced often but were not allowed to protect themselves on campus. Several times my students were robbed or even kidnapped on campus. The criminals loved having so many soft targets with new electronics.

A student group petitioned the school president and the state legislature to allow licensed guns on campus. They were told to instead walk in groups at night. As a result several enterprising robbers started carrying flex-ties so they could rob large groups and leave them face down and bereft of their belongings and dignity.

jacalata• 11 years ago

And you never thought about just transferring out of Mogadishu?

droithomme• 11 years ago

He wasn't in Mogadishu. Why would you assume that?

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/student-robbed-at-gunpoint-insi...

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/georgia-tech-student-mu...

http://patch.com/georgia/midtown/police-seek-atlantic-statio...

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/ga-tech-students-robbed...

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/sixth-atlanta-college-student-r...

jboggan4• 11 years ago

Well I left Atlanta 3 years ago and don't miss it, mainly for those kinds of reasons. I had the choice and ability to move elsewhere but a lot of people don't. Is it really reasonable to restart your graduate studies in another state because you are worried about crime? Or is it more reasonable to be allowed the same rights and responsibilities concerning self defense that exist across the street from your university?

A lot of students don't realize how dangerous their colleges are until they have been there awhile. Administrations do a good job quieting down stories and keeping them out of the paper.

dropit_sphere3• 11 years ago

I don't know if you've noticed, but we're running out of frontier.

joshuapants3• 11 years ago

I went to college in the Bronx. No guns allowed there, but plenty of people holding up defenseless college students.

monochromatic• 11 years ago

Why would we trust people with a concealed handgun license to carry all over town, but force them to go unarmed on campus? And before anyone says "alcohol," carrying drunk is already a separate crime.

Glyptodon• 11 years ago

I don't know. Forget being safe, I'm reminded of how my college told me I couldn't keep a fencing foil in my dorm room because it was a "weapon" and I'm somewhat sympathetic. Especially considering students with baseball bats and such were never told anything similar. I don't think college should come with a "only approved hobbies allowed" sign.

muriithi• 11 years ago

Kenya is far away from Texas but I wish some of the 147 students who were killed in their hostels on 2nd of April could shoot back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garissa_University_College_atta...

ericclemmons2• 11 years ago

I'm pleasantly surprised by the feedback on this so far.

As a CHL holder in Texas, I think this law makes sense. Having taken the training, which I think should be a prerequisite for gun ownership IMO, my threshold for when I would brandish my weapon is insanely high now.

Mainly, the course emphasized the huge impact after the situation ends. You may be the one who's dead, as heroic acts rarely end picture-perfect. You'll have killed another person, with a family who's life is wrecked as a result. You'll likely lose tons of money fighting the court cases that'll surely emerge.

Before, I was brought up with the southern notion that stealing a TV warranted shooting on sight. Having actually talked through scenarios, taken classes, and prepared for the unforeseen possibilities, I'd rather avoid using a weapon unless a death is imminent.

gonzo5• 11 years ago

which I think should be a prerequisite for gun ownership IMO

only the Second Amendment stops you, and people like you.

my threshold for when I would brandish my weapon is insanely high now.

only... Texas is about to pass Open Carry.

anigbrowl• 11 years ago

Actually, I don't see how the 2nd amendment is incompatible with a training requirement. It specifies the need for a well regulated militia, and I disagree that a training requirement constitutes an infringement. It's funny how 2nd Amendment boosters seem to have no problem denying gun privileges to ex-felons and the like, even though the Constitution makes no such restriction and there's no question taht even people locked up in prison have first amendment rights. I remember being at a legal symposum a few years ago where a lawyer cheekily offered a paper arguing that 2nd amendment rights must extend to illegal aliens, which was met with consternation from some of the more 'patriotic' types.

bsder• 11 years ago

Personally, I'd rather have open carry than concealed.

If you are open carrying, I can simply leave your presence. Or I can request that you leave if I am a store owner, etc.

The reason why the NRA supports concealed carry is so that non-carriers can't call people out.

JoeAltmaier9• 11 years ago

Brandishing and open carry are entirely different things. Take the class!

ucho• 11 years ago

I'm pleasantly surprised by the feedback on this so far.

Why are you surprised? If gun carry is allowed and common then any gun-free zone (expect few well guarded places like court rooms) is completely insane.

louithethrid• 11 years ago

Now .. the cold war showed that when everybody has a nuke then nobody will ever live to tell the tale from that one guy, who build a gun wilding drone.

The problem is that crime is so high, and crime is so high, because society basically provide those guys with high-income-guaranteed-protected-by-the-state-zones (drug trade). And the drug trade is part of your way of life. You cant preach protestant ethics and expect those who fall short to stay in that harsh reality that is created.

Even if everybody gets a free wrench, if the aqueduct is pumping water into your houses attic, you never gonna have a dry day. But you gonna have people bleeding from there heads where the wrenches hit.

Armed campus police would make sense though.

ExpiredLink• 11 years ago

Once upon a time at an US college:

http://filmmakeriq.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Once-Upon-...

staticelf2• 11 years ago

As a Swede this seems completely medeival to me and I have troubles understanding how anyone can support such a law.

But since it is the US we're talking about, I'm not surprised. The US just have 1 additional reason why I wouldn't even consider moving there.

M82• 11 years ago

Is Sweden one of those countries where harming a robber inside your own house can put you in jail?

staticelf2• 11 years ago

Yes :P

At least if you are doing unnecessary damage to the person. For example, if you are just defending yourself, it is okay. If the robber was not armed and you shoot him/her down, you will be prosecuted for that.

jboggan4• 11 years ago

The US is extremely large and extremely varied. I used to deal with these sorts of existential threats every day, but by moving to a city with more than double the cost of living I was able to escape most of it. Some folks are luckier and are born in more peaceful societies, you should be thankful!

jib• 11 years ago

As a non-american, this is really weird to me.

I grew up around plenty of guns at my friends - they were moose hunting rifles mostly. And they were under lock and key unless actively used for hunting, with guns locked in one location, ammunition locked in another (at least one of them in safe).

The police where I live now (Ireland) don't carry guns except for a few special units.

The fact that wearing guns is something that is every day business and that you can even discuss about is so alien to me that it is fascinating to see. I am glad I dont live in a society with those values though.

More guns means more people killed by guns. That said, I don't know the solution once you already have a proliferation of guns in your society. Personally I don't believe that maximizing the saturation of guns is a long-term solution but I recognize that it is a difficult situation.

JoeAltmaier9• 11 years ago

That's probably not true. More firearms can easily mean fewer deaths. An armed society is a polite society. Historically the most heavily-armed old west towns were the ones with the lowest death rates from violence.

GFischer2• 11 years ago

My main problem with this is.. why "armed" have to equal "lethal firearms"? Why no more R&D into nonlethal options (something like an improved taser?).

I don't want to own a gun, because a gun is not effective unless you're willing to use it (in a last resort), and i don't want to do that... I want to own a Taser though (for self-defense).

jononomo• 11 years ago

"An armed society is a polite society."

I don't buy this.

spanishcow• 11 years ago

| That's probably not true. *Citation needed

M82• 11 years ago

They should allow it in schools as well. Would stop bullying quite quick.

arethuza3• 11 years ago

Out of interest, do kids get taught weapons handling and how to shoot at high school in the US?

[NB I'm asking because some kids get taught these things in the UK]

JoeAltmaier9• 11 years ago

High schools in most states don't have shooting programs any more. Also no wood shop, or metal shop, or automotive classes. Budget cuts.

Youth groups do the training now. My son is a shooting instructor, was Director of shooting sports at our local camp for years.

hga4• 11 years ago

There's a Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior_Reserve_Officers%27_Tra...) program that's reasonably popular in many parts of the US, and weapons training is a popular part of it. When I did it in the late '70s it was small bore/.22LR in the winter when getting out wasn't so practical, and there was an opportunity to go to a "summer camp" where you would practice with real service rifles, practice grenades (they wouldn't let the young ones try out real ones), putting on a gas mask in a tear gas chamber, basically a junior boot camp sort of thing. My parents were no fun at all and wouldn't let me attend the latter :-( which due to eyesight was the closest I ever could get to the real thing ).

And of course a rifle team, in which I had a lot of fun, small bore rifles, 50 feet, the "10" was a dot the size of the hole a needle makes in a piece of paper. Quite challenging and two years of early morning practice really improved my marksmanship, even got a nifty and 100% authentic Expert marksmanship badge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marksmanship_Badges_(United_St...). We on the team helped with the safety monitoring and instruction in the winter rifle marksmanship and that was very worthwhile as well, teaching a novice well enough to get a Marksman badge was a great experience and generally useful for life.

In fact, teaching others was one of the things JROTC explicitly taught, as they pointed out the Army has to constantly teach a lot of people all sorts of things. Definitely one of the most useful things I learned in high school.

Texas Lawmakers Pass a Bill Allowing Guns at Colleges

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