Campus Carry Opinion

[Jasonw560]

I guess I better get my yard mowed.

One think I want to ask sgfstexas is, I know they think they're forcing colleges to allow guns on campus (in buildings, really), but as an extension of the state, how can they force basic human rights on someone?

As I said in a letter I recently wrote, the "force" is the will of these colleges keeping their faculty, staff, students, and visitors victims.

[oldtexan]

I voted undecided. I don't have any special insight about this matter, and from my perch it looks like it could go either way.

I am very much in favor of campus carry becoming a reality, because my wife is a faculty member at a state university here and a CHL holder. If it passes, she will likely carry on campus.

I have been thinking about why campus carry might ultimately fail this session. We live in a state with about 600k CHL holders IIRC and a population of about 24 million. If we assume that about half of that 24 million can't get a CHL because of age or other issues, then that would mean that about 1 in 20 Texans eligible to get a CHL has done so. So let's assume that about 5-6 % of Texans truly support concealed carry of any kind. That leaves a huge hunk of the population that is either neutral or hostile to carry. Most of these folks I would guess are simply neutral to campus carry, but there are certainly significant numbers of folks who are passionately opposed to it. By the way, it does no good to characterize them as cowardly, foolish, or ill-informed. They may simply look at the issue and arrive at a different conclusion from us.

So what we have is an issue about which the vast majority of Texans are either more or less neutral or more or less hostile, competing against many other bills for time and support in a very short legislative session (no more than 140 days). In a year where we have a significant budget challenge and many other issues that actually affect most Texans' lives directly, is it surprising that campus carry is a hard sale?

I may cost a legislator little or nothing in terms of political capital to sign on as a co-author of a campus carry bill. It's quite another matter to do what it takes to takes to get that bill passed.