After twenty long years, the Texas legislature's number one obsession, dismantling the teaching of evolution in science classes (see here and here), has recently run into problems. So members of the reactionary right in that august body have turned their attention to improving another tool of higher education - gun rights. Conservative lawmakers of my state, with the support of our moronic governor, Rick "Good Hair" Perry, are writing legislation that will loosen restrictions on the state's gun laws. Texas already allows licensed gun owners to carry concealed weapons. Now the same gun owners may be able to brandish them in public. The "wild west" proposition will also make it legal to carry guns on university campuses. Not surprisingly, sane and sober people are alarmed.
AUSTIN — Michael Guzman, a 25-year-old Texas State University senior and Marine veteran, takes his Kimber Ultra Carry II handgun just about everywhere he goes. Except to school.
Texas lawmakers, however, are crafting ways to allow licensed handgun owners to tote their guns more easily. One proposal would let guns be carried on campuses, and another would allow licensed handgun owners to openly brandish their guns in public. Together, the two issues are likely to be the most contentious gun-related laws of the session.
State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, is preparing the campus concealed-carry gun measure. He calls it a “safety protection bill” for students and faculty.
“I don’t want to wake up one morning and hear on the news that some madman went on a Texas campus and picked off Texas students like sitting ducks,” Wentworth said. “I’m doing what I can to prevent that from happening in Texas.”…
Gov. Rick Perry is among those supporting the notion of letting adult students bring handguns on campus if they are licensed to carry them. The issue has been met with opposition from gun-control advocates, university officials, campus law enforcement and some lawmakers.
Earlier this week, the University of Texas at Austin’s student government overwhelmingly passed a resolution supporting their campus gun ban and calling on “elected officials in Texas to oppose attempts to eliminate campus weapons bans.”
“I don’t want to return to a 19th-century Wild West urban atmosphere for Texas,” said state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth. “I oppose both concealed-carry on campus and open-carry, but psychologically open-carry is the worst by far because of the implications it has when you’re walking down the street.”
Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said he has not seen the bills but would not be inclined to support guns on campuses. “I think it’s an issue of safety,” he said. “Will that improve or diminish the safety of students? My gut instinct is most members would say it actually diminishes the safety of faculty and staff. … They didn’t pass it before, and they don’t have as good a chance for passing it now.”
Why stop at arming only the universities? After all, there have been more lethal shoot outs in American high schools than on college campuses. Why not also allow guns in high schools? Oops, I forgot. Some tough Texans already did that!
Accidental Blogger 
2 responses to “Readin’, Writin’ & Packin’ Heat”
Does Texas have some contagious virus going around? I’ve half a suspicion that one of the members of the erstwhile ‘Gang of Five’ of the embattled school board where I live, must have contracted this ‘gun fever’ not too long ago. She was rumored to have been carrying a pistol around in her handbag, even to innocuous locations like the gym, and gasp, even the elementary school which her son attends ( also one which my kid goes to). A thoroughly unpleasant character, who fortunately doesn’t choose to show up for school board meetings any more, after her group was outnumbered by the more rational candidates after last year’s elections.
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Do they really think there are going to be FEWER campus shootings by putting MORE guns on campus? Or is that just a line the politicians use without believing it because they have some other objective (like creating a wedge issue)? I’m really curious — I wonder what the psychology of a person who believed that would have to be.
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