By Calvin Palmer
The class roll-call at colleges across Texas may soon reverberate with the names of Colt, Glock, Beretta, Walther, Smith and Wesson, if the state’s lawmakers allow guns to be carried on campuses either as concealed weapons or openly brandished.
State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, is preparing the campus concealed-carry gun measure to be put before the next session of the State Legislature. He calls it a “safety protection bill” for students and faculty.
“I don’t want to wake up one morning and hear on the news that some madman went on a Texas campus and picked off Texas students like sitting ducks,” Wentworth said. “I’m doing what I can to prevent that from happening in Texas.”
Who says it won’t be some madwoman? That’s a rather sexist stance and likely to be met with derision by the likes of Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter.
Wouldn’t it be easier to prevent a gunman or gunwoman going on the rampage by simply banning handguns? Oh, I forgot, Wentworth is a Republican.
A similar move to Wentworth’s was put before the Legislature in 1997 and 1999, when the then-state Rep. Suzanna Hupp, a Republican from Lampasas whose parents were shot and killed in the 1991 Luby’s massacre in Killeen, proposed similar legislation. The bills didn’t pass.
Republican, eh? Quelle surprise!
Gov. Rick Perry is among those supporting the notion of letting adult students bring handguns on campus if they are licensed to carry them. You betcha!
Thankfully, Texas is blessed with people who realize that they are living in the 21st Century. They tend not to be Republicans.
Opponents to such preposterous proposals include gun-control advocates, university officials, campus law enforcement and some lawmakers.
The University of Texas at Austin’s student government overwhelmingly passed this week a resolution supporting their campus gun ban and calling on “elected officials in Texas to oppose attempts to eliminate campus weapons bans.”
“I don’t want to return to a 19th-century Wild West urban atmosphere for Texas,” said state Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth. “I oppose both concealed-carry on campus and open-carry, but psychologically open-carry is the worst by far because of the implications it has when you’re walking down the street.”
Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said he has not seen the bills but would not be inclined to support guns on campuses.
“I think it’s an issue of safety,” he said. “Will that improve or diminish the safety of students? My gut instinct is most members would say it actually diminishes the safety of faculty and staff. … They didn’t pass it before, and they don’t have as good a chance for passing it now.”
Texas State Rifle Association lobbyist Alice Tripp said the group is “not forwarding the issue.” And why should it? Rifles and handguns are like apples and oranges. A rifle may be used for recreational sport, hunting and skeet shooting. A handgun has only one purpose — to kill or maim people.
At present, people with handgun permits have to keep their weapons concealed but that is not enough for Ian McCarthy, a 22-year-old online marketing entrepreneur in Austin. Does that mean he sells stuff on eBay?
McCarthy wants to be able to brandish one openly.
“Criminals want an easy target,” he said. “When they see you can fight back, they’re going to go somewhere else.”
Not necessarily. They may decide to blow your head clean off just because you have had the temerity to point a gun at them.
His rationale assumes a person has the gun skills of Dirty Harry. But what happens if the criminal has faster reactions and a steadier hand? One dead McCarthy. It is open to debate whether that would be a great loss.
McCarthy is a member of the national pro-gun group OpenCarry.org, which has raised more than $10,000 online to buy radio and billboard ads across the state and has collected more than 53,000 online Texas signatures in favor of changing the law.
Won’t it look a little suspect when nearly all of those signatures read as either Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam?
It’s good to know so many Looney Tunes are alive and well, and living in Texas.
[Based on a report by the Houston Chronicle.]
