Campus Carry Protest Upheld

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Glenn E. Meyer

New member
From the Chronicle of Higher Ed.

March 16, 2010, 11:18 AM ET

Judge Rules Texas College Must Allow Empty-Holster Protests
Tarrant County College violated the First Amendment rights of two students when it did not allow them to hold "empty holster" protests in November, a federal district-court judge ruled yesterday. The community college's chancellor, Erma J. Hadley, testified in January that she had felt that the protests might have frightened some students or allowed others to use the events to carry weapons on the campus, reported the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. The two students, who want a change in state law to allow licensed, concealed handguns on campuses, can now seek to recover legal fees from the college, which was ordered not to ban the protests.
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I didn't know this happened. Good - campuses have all kinds of protests about subjects which you may or may not agree. Since the students had no weapons, the Chancellor was clearly out of line and I might suggest needs to be disciplined for her trampling of student rights.

If she had forbidden demonstrations on many other frightening subjects, she would laughed at.
 
Mature, responsible students having concealed hand guns may have prevented or at least reduced the mass killings that have happened at Universities about the country. It's time for the country to realize that it is not the gun that kills but merely a tool for a killer and conversely, a tool to save lives when in the hands of morally and mentally correct people.
 
Mature, responsible students having concealed hand guns may have prevented or at least reduced the mass killings that have happened at Universities about the country. It's time for the country to realize that it is not the gun that kills but merely a tool for a killer and conversely, a tool to save lives when in the hands of morally and mentally correct people.
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I think most Americans already realize that; our self-appointed neo-aristocrats in Washington, D.C. deliberately don't know it.
 
The bans exist at the state level. Also, the elected federal officials (self-appointed?) haven't mandated no school carry. In fact, in TX - the business community was instrumental in blocking carry and parking lot bills.

That's the reality.

I've summarized school carry issues before - the opposition goes like this (not ranked, just as I remember them).

1. Antigun folk

2. Liability and risk managers - ideology not important - they just have calculated that carry will cost the school more money if something bad happens because of it as compared to a rampage.

3. Private businessmen who fear that mandating carry will also carry over to their businesses and their fears similar to the ones in #2.

4. Gun folks who fear that the student population lacks the maturity to carry guns - given their other behavioral exceses. This is particularly true for campus residents who are just over the 21 year old border. We know that impulse control isn't that hot at that edge. Dorms could a particular risk.

Thus this risk catches the mature night student.

5. The training issue. This engages the reason for carry. The subtext is not to prevent the single mugger crime or rapist (although that is worthy and an argument for carry in general). It is to prevent or limit rampages. However, if you posit going into a intense gunfight - should you have some competency? Thus this adds more standards for campus carry - if you say that you will be interventionist in a VT.

Background for this is that research demonstrates that killing an innocent even to save a greater number of innocents is not looked on positively. Thus, the risk of a bystander getting shot is very prominent in the debate - esp. if you have untrained folks proposing to blaze away.

One could suggest just faculty and staff carry - that has been proposed in some states. Or training standards added.

Anyway, that's my view of the carry debate landscape and unless those issues are understood - bills wont' go far. Just saying RBKA forever, won't work.
 
Thank you for that summary. I'd been wondering what all the hubbub was about.

I sure wish I could carry on campus. It seems like every week someone is getting mugged or raped on campus. I can't even have an unloaded and locked up gun in a car parked on campus. :confused:
 
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