I guess I would rather have my daughter have the ability to be armed and fight back against the campus shooters than to have her be a helpless victim because some people cannot differentiate between the tool and the wielder.
As someone said earlier, if you are going to shoot someone, you are not constrained by the lesser laws that require the gun is legally held anyway.
Much ado about nothing. For every tragedy, there will be untold cases of crimes prevented because the criminals are hunting easier prey. Ask most cops and they will tell you that criminals tend to be cowards and look for the easiest mark. I’d be more worried about daughter at a disarmed Rice than at TAMU.
I’ve got to say, I was surprised that Texas didn’t already have open carry, given how many states do. My state has had it for years, and I can’t recall really ever seeing people carrying guns around. It’s only lately that some people have started to make a big show of it to prove a point.
My state has had proposals to allow guns on campus a few times recently. So far it hasn’t happened, which I’m glad to see.
A little off topic, but really, that comment made me laugh. Criminals looking for the easier target doesn’t make them “cowards”, it just shows they’re not that stupid.
I doubt it. As has already been mentioned, the law allows for schools to prohibit guns where they see fit. The tower has only be open to the public recently, by reservation only, and in the presence of staff, and I’m willing to bet that since they don’t even allow purses or backpacks, no guns are allowed either.
But apart from that, do you think that someone who wants to shoot at people from tall campus buildings has just been waiting with bated breath for open carry to be legal? After all, that type of person would not want to break the law, right?
Anyone so inclined could hide guns, legally acquired or no, in a back pack and go onto any college campus in the US and do the same. I don’t think the open carry law is a good thing AT ALL, but not because it’s going to result in more mass killings, but because I can see all kinds of things happening as a result of rage combined with alcohol combined with easy access.
Date rape is enough of a problem already, so now instead of just physically coercing the girl to submit the guy can point a gun at her. Fantastic. Bro- tastic. God help us.
it’s cool to exercise your constitutional rights, but college kids + deadly weapons does not sound like the safest combination. i don’t even see why a college student would need to have a gun on campus in the first place.
i’d been hoping the session would end without the passing of this bill, but oh well
I understand and respect your position on the 2nd Amendment, but you are now sounding like Jackie at UVA - just making stuff up about rape that has not happened. It is bizarre when someone makes something up and then pretends like it really happened. Not even useful in terms of a discussion point.
EDIT: Additionally, it is interesting how “female weak” your post is, i.e., the male with the gun and raping the female. Interesting that you never seem to think of a male trying to rape a female and she stops him because she has a gun. I never got this the female must not defend herself and just take it mindset.
So if a girl doesn’t pack heat on a date, (or at the library or at a party or on the way to the showers) and gets raped, it becomes her fault. Or so the argument will go.
My kid is headed off to a campus where there is a definite crime risk. Given the choice though, I’d rather he just give up his cell phone and walking around money than get into a quick draw point blank shootout with a perp who has nothing to lose. Chances are you lose your life and your gun too, instead of just you iphone.
Weird thinking. Hum… if it is a first or second date and the female does not know the guy well or really at all (doing out starts somewhere), how is she supposed to know he is not a serial rapist or about to commit his first rape? Pretty stupid to go out on a first or even second date without your guard up higher than normal. At least, that is what my Dad thought my sister, and my FIL taught my wife. And depending on how people met, this might extend to a third date.
And even weirder thinking - who in the world said it was her fault if she was not packing heat and got raped? No one. What the gun provides is the opportunity to not become a rape statistic. That is not about being at fault; it is about putting yourself first and understanding that depending on the someone not to harm you is not a defense - it is actually the easiest and quickest way to be always the victim because it puts you at the mercy of others. And this approach goes of both males and females.
Seriously, one really has to stupid to teach any male or female that hoping and depending on someone not harming you is a defense against a criminal. No, that is exactly the person the criminal will target and be successful harming.
Well, your son would be nuts to pull to a gun to defend walking around money and an iPhone. Everyone I know who packs would not pull the weapon in such a case and would hand over the wallet and phone. All the conceal carry classes I have been in taught the same thing - hand it over. Only if the threat is greater, such as hand over your stuff and turn around and walk this way etc., does one then act accordingly.
And I note in your example that you are also depending on the criminal only wanting the money and cellphone, What about a gang initiation or drug addict where beating the hell out of someone is what is going to happen? I rather have a fighting chance than get my butt kicked by people. But that is just me.
The great thing about our country… if you don’t like the laws that the people of one state pass, you can always move to a different state where you like the laws better. I understand that Baltimore has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, so that might be an option for folk who don’t like Texas.
I listened to a podcast interview with Gov. Greg Abbott on the college carry law this week. He said that he and university presidents didn’t expect this change in the law to be a problem for Texans. Abbott served as a Texas Supreme Court justice before resigning to run for Attorney General. As Attorney General, he argued and won before the US. Supreme Court… And, he set up a Solicitor General’s office in Texas with the specific goal of actively seeking constitutionally important test cases in appellate courts. The idea was an activist effort to use the courts to nudge and change constitutional law in the United States.
Abbott hired Ted Cruz as the first Solicitor General for the new office. Cruz had clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist and argued eight cases before the US Supreme Court and wrote 40 Supreme Court cases before leaving for the Senate. Some for Texas, some as the lead litigator when groups of states sued federal agencies or filed amicus briefs. In at least one case, the Supreme Court requested a friend of the court brief from Cruz’ office.
Texas is a hotbed of activist constitutional law. You have to view things like the college-carry legislation in the context of a bigger legal/political backdrop. Some of the stuff they pass is probably intended to provoke court challenges.
“Well, your son would be nuts to pull to a gun to defend walking around money and an iPhone. Everyone I know who packs would not pull the weapon in such a case and would hand over the wallet and phone”
Well, then what’s the freaking point if you’re going to do the same thing as me and hand over the wallet and phone? Other than it makes you feel like a bad*** to have a gun on you. Too many John Wayne movies.
“The great thing about our country… if you don’t like the laws that the people of one state pass, you can always move to a different state where you like the laws better. I understand that Baltimore has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, so that might be an option for folk who don’t like Texas.”
Remember the standoff that was on the news? Just think how worse that would have been if the troublemakers of Baltimore all thought they were a bunch of cowboys and were waving around guns.
