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'Campus Carry' Goes Into Effect as Texas Remembers UT Tower Shootings 50 Years Later

posted by cmn32480 on Sunday August 07 2016, @09:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the protect-yourself-'cuz-no-one-else-will dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Concealed handgun license holders in Texas can carry their weapons into public university buildings, classrooms and dorms starting Monday, a day that also marks 50 years after the mass shooting at the University of Texas' landmark clock tower.

The campus-carry law pushed by Gov. Greg Abbott and the Republican legislative majority makes Texas one of a handful of states guaranteeing the right to carry concealed handguns on campus. 

Texas has allowed concealed handguns in public for 20 years. Gun rights advocates consider it an important protection, given the constitutional right to bear arms, as well as a key self-defense measure in cases of campus violence, such as the 1966 UT shootings and the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech.

Opponents of the law fear it will chill free speech on campus and lead to more campus suicide. The former dean of the University of Texas School of Architecture left for a position at the University of Pennsylvania because of his opposition to allowing guns on campus.

Officials told the Austin American-Statesman it was a coincidence that the law took effect 50 years to the day after the UT shooting. Marine-trained sniper Charles Whitman climbed to the observation deck of the 27-story clock tower in the heart of UT's flagship Austin campus, armed with rifles, pistols and a sawed-off shotgun on Aug. 1, 1966, killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 others before officers gunned him down.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/08/01/campus-carry-goes-into-effect-as-texas-remembers-ut-tower-shootings-50-years-later.html

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  • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday August 08 2016, @10:44AM

    by zocalo (302) on Monday August 08 2016, @10:44AM (#385247)
    I agree, we're definitely talking a long timescale here, and the longer it takes the better obviously. The point was that it almost certainly *is* just a matter of time before there is a mass shooting at a concealled carry school, and eventually there will be more, so thanks to Texas we'll eventually get some data points on carry vs. non-carry where most other variables are equal. So, the for those that believe concealled carry (or open carry, for that matter) should be a major deterrent against school shooters, it's now possible to set out some criteria by which you can assess the validity or otherwise of the idea once we do get that sample size (or rate of incidents). For instance if there is no noticeable difference in where shooters act regardless of carry state then the idea is probably bunk, whereas if there is a significant downturn in shootings at carry schools then the idea can be much better argued to have merit. It's those criteria I'm curious about; how much wiggle room are those that think the idea of carry as a deterent has merit are prepared to write off as being within an "acceptable" margin of error before they admit they are wrong and what kind of skew they feel would be necessary before they can justifiably say "I told you so!".
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