Texas considers allowing students to carry guns at public universities

I’m not an advocate of guns everywhere all the time, but I don’t understand the mentality that students should not enjoy the same rights as others as far as gun ownership. Public college campuses can be like cities - A&M covers 5.200 acres and has 45,000 students and that doesn’t even include the staff and faculty. A student can live, eat, and work on the campus and may never leave once in a semester. Being a student should not mean that a persons rights are infringed.

4 Likes

Guns.

Loaded handguns.

In Texas.

On university campuses.

In the hands of students.

Who go to frat parties.

.
.
.

Helluvan intelligence test there

5 Likes

The weird part, to me, is it seems like in a sane state (yeah, yeah, Texas, I understand, my Dad went to Texas A & M back in the day) authorities very well might allow you to carry your guns just like anywhere else, but they’d want to spend some extra effort trying to convince students that carrying on campus is a terribly bad idea.

I mean, they spend a lot of time trying to convince students not to drink themselves to death, with limited effectiveness, so I think it’s just recognizing reality to say that students are going to occasionally make bad decisions. If I was a state officer, or and educator, I’d be trying to convince them to voluntarily go unarmed, at least most of the time.

Seems to me the whole thing is upside-down from both a PR and a pragmatic perspective.

Edit: I see @sargemisfit beat me to it, only more concisely.

3 Likes

This bill might be very important, because students need to defend their dorm rooms against terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and carjackers and knockout gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all…

7 Likes

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think it’s a good idea for most people to have guns. But if we say that it’s a right at 18 to own one, then I don’t think its right to say that it only applies to people who aren’t pursuing a college education. There are plenty of drunk 20-somethings who go to parties who aren’t in college.

4 Likes

I think you are perfectly able, depending on state law, to own and carry a weapon at 18, but not into places that have been deemed inappropriate. You know, like Airports, Schools and Government Offices (like the Post Office, where they shoot you!)

Packing a lot of late teens/early 20 somethings into one place is dangerous enough and has essentially created rape and abuse factories. Lets not add firepower.

7 Likes

The guns will stop the rape!

2 Likes

I get that. My point is that a college campus is not like a school building - it’s more like a city of 50,000 people so banning certain things “at school” means effectively banning them entirely for certain segments of the population. And I don’t think its fair to infantalize that population either; if they are adults, treat them like adults. If they abuse that trust, try them as adults.

3 Likes

Ah Texas. When I was a nerdy high school senior I did the college visit to Rice, and had several first experiences:

  • First time drinking in a movie theater
  • First time meeting people who drink all weekend long every weekend
  • First time pissing in bushes with other people
  • First time being a passenger in a vehicle with a drunk driver

I can only imagine the firsts yet to come when this gets implemented.

5 Likes

We could use the same rationale on behalf of someone opening a gambling house or sex club on school property.

2 Likes

So one armed student who took his own life is terrifying, but thousands of armed students is reassuring?

9 Likes

Do they search for and remove guns from students now?

1 Like

Except those are not legal, of course, much less constitutional rights.

Gambling and sex clubs aren’t illegal. Are you now suggesting that the school really does have a legitimate interest in prohibiting activities that are otherwise legal?

1 Like

They are under no obligation to allow any and all legal activities or items on campus. Examples: smoking, pets, hard liquor, space heaters.

6 Likes

Sorry, it’s crocodile tears to complain about people being armed at heavily fortified government facilities. If guns aren’t appropriate somewhere, this applies to everybody.

1 Like

Swimming pools, gotta get those in there, cuz they’re every bit as dangerous as guns. And far as I know, just about every campus has at least one!

Swimming pools, gotta get those in there, cuz they’re every bit as dangerous as guns.

I seem to recall that the campus pool was locked up a good part of the night. Though, to be fair, I wasn’t a big user. In all my years at the place, I never went to Wednesday’s nude swim.

You seem willing to put up with a lot of dead bodies just to keep those constitutional rights intact. You also seem oblivious to the varying significance of context.

1 Like

Well good thing you didn’t, cuz those places are every bit as dangerous as guns!