Campus Carry Controversy Analysis

There is much controversy over whether or not students should be able to bring guns on college campuses. The new law, to be implemented in the year of 2016, gives students ages 21 or older to carry concealed weapons on campus. The thought of the new law puts fear in the hearts of some Americans when thinking about the safety of themselves or loved ones. While the bill has been passed, allowing guns onto a college campus should not be allowed.

Many students and faculty members fear that allowing weapons on campus may cause tension and hostility or even cause minor situations to rapidly escalate. Others feel as if open carry on campus is missing link to reducing the number of school shootings across the country. When it comes to allowing firearms on campus, some of the most important factors to consider are: how active shooter situations will be handled, why it is important to be on alert, and should first responders be the only one responsible campus safety.

Concealed carry and college campuses are two major topics currently in the media, yet these two topics are rarely used in unison, until now. The topic of whether or not concealed carry should be allowed on college campuses is a now mainstream debate with multiple views and numerous differentiating opinions. Many of the general public question if campus police is capable enough to protect a university’s enormous student body? Another commonly discussed issue is if concealed handguns actually do deter crime, and if they are capable of aiding in stopping a mass shooting spree? Or if guns on campus, carried by fellow classmates would make students as a whole feel more cautious or on the opposing hand make students feel more secure with guns carried on campus? If guns are allowed on campus, how will this affect a growing student’s ideology? These questions and many more are highly spoken of in our social media based generation, the answers to these questions help to improve our knowledge on this debate of concealed carry on college campuses, which will lead us to form our own individual opinions on this debate topic based on the facts and evidence presented.

With backpacks in tow and pencils in hand, college students crisscross campus with stress of acing the test, hardly thinking about their safety. This was the case on a clear Tuesday at the University of Texas on September 28th, 2010. Students fled from a mask gunman carrying an AK-47 and shooting randomly around campus. Nineteen-year-old Colton Tooley, wearing a black mask, eventually killed himself in the library. Remarkably, no one else was injured or killed. (MSNBC) This was not the case in 1966 when 16 people where killed with 32 injured by a gunman in the UT clock tower. The debate still wages on to allow concealed guns to be carried on college campus in Texas despite a recent bill that failed to pass. The US Constitutional Second

Republican Senator Brian Birdwell introduced the Texas Senate Bill 11, also known as the Campus Carry Bill, to the House and Senate on January 26, 2015. With Texas being a highly conservative state, supporters of this bill were largely consisted of Republicans and gun-rights activists. Many supporters, especially pro-gun individuals, argued the second amendment would be violated by not allowing those with a concealed handgun license (CHL) to carry a concealed gun on campus. They also believed guns can be utilized as a form of self-defense to further support the passage of this bill.

Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. Debate over permitting or restricting the concealed carry of a firearm on college

HB 910, better known as the Open-Carry Bill is a bill that was passed on May 29, 2015 and signed into law by Governor Jim Abbott after it cleared both chambers of the Legislature. The Open-Carry Bill allows licensed holders to carry concealed handguns on public college campuses. Abbott claims that the bill will not only strengthen Texans second amendment rights, it will secure them (The Associated Press, 2015). However, the bill has raised questions regarding the safety of students and faculty on college campuses. As a team, we initiated our research by questioning the results of how the bill will affect college campuses across Texas. The objective of our research is to gather qualitative and quantitative data that defines

Allowing concealed weapons on campus has been around for several years now. Sides such as, Students for Concealed Carry, who advocate for the right to carry on campuses and the other opposing such thing. Former, Students for Concealed Carry Director, David Burnett wrote an article about the reasons as to why students should be able to carry on campuses. Burnett was the director for the group in 2011, he wanted to get the word out about this cause during his time. Burnett wrote several articles about the reasons to why students should be allowed to carry on campus. Also the websites states, “state-issued concealed handgun licenses should be allowed the same measure of personal protection on college campuses that current laws afford them virtually everywhere else.”(1) Burnett states this into his article because under the new law, only those who have a concealed handgun license would be able to carry. Those with licenses can freely carry in movie theaters, grocery stores, banks, shopping malls and even churches so why should a

On April 16th 2007 at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, a student with psychological problems began a two hour killing spree that left 33 dead (Reader). The massacre that occurred at this school is now the worst recorded incident in the history of the United States and eclipses the University of Texas massacre of 1966. In the wake of tragedies like these, students, teachers and administrators propose more measures to make us feel safe on campus. But why weren't these measures in place before? School administrators and police have a responsibility to protect their students and faculty on campus, and these instances clearly shown a lack of fulfilling that responsibility. And yet several campus' refuse to allow law-abiding and

Many Black and Latin voters in the state of Texas absolutely do not support any such idea of the campus carry. This has been said due to a most recent poll that was taken by the Urban Policy Research and

August 1 marks the day which the state’s new Campus Carry law was enacted. This law which comply with Senate Bill 11, has authorized a licensed holder to carry concealed handgun at University of Texas at Austin and other public universities in Texas. The implementation of this law have risen controversy between the stakeholders which are the faculty members, students, parents, staffers and alumni. In regard to this, President Fenves has assigned a Campus Carry Working Group to guide the implementation of Senate Bill 11 which complies the law and at the same time ensuring the safety of the campus.

We are seeing a growing number of states bringing forth campus carry to their legislation. Some states leave it up to the individual college or university to decide to allow concealed carry, while others outright ban it. However, Texas passed Senate Bill 11 which allowed for licensed gun holders to carry a concealed handgun on university grounds. Texas was the eighth state to allow concealed campus carry. Now Georgia and Tennessee are beginning to make efforts. House Bill 280 has recently passed through Georgia’s legislature and is now awaiting the Governor's approval or denial. In Tennessee, full-time employees have been able to carry concealed weapons as of July of 2016, now they are pushing to expand the law to part-time employees as well.

Governor Greg Abbott plans to sign into law two bills that will expand the rights of

As of this present day, concealed handguns are now allowed to be carried anywhere on all Texas public universities. This shocking dispensation, from earlier prohibiting regulations, is now enforced by the new law in the state of Texas. This law is known as S.B. 11 or Senate Bill 11. For those of you who don’t know how a bill becomes a law, it’s a long, crazy process. The fact that this bill made it through every step of it is an insane thought that questions, how?

The arguments against open carry on campus follow the same lines as arguments against concealed carry on campus. Since open carry as a whole is a relatively new subject in the debate about gun control, the statistics used will have to be from the concealed carry studies. While these are two different things, they are fundamentally the same. The major arguments are that it will increase crime, that the gun could go off on accident and injure someone, a person could also snap and go on a killing spree, and that there is no need for guns as police already carry and protect the school. The first argument to look at is that it will increase the crime rate on campus and in the surrounding areas. According to a peer-reviewed study in the Econ Journal Watch, “shall issue” laws saw an increase in aggravated assaults between 1977 and 2006. A paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research also found, between 1977 and 2010, an increase of 2% in murder rates in “shall issue” states. Criminals are more likely to carry a gun when they think a potential victim could have one. This is according to a survey of incarcerated felons by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research in which 75% of the felons agreed with this mentality.