On Aug. 1 1966, student Charles Whitman killed 16 people in a rampage, firing from a perch atop the clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin, the state’s flagship public university.
Advertisement
Texas law now permits people of 21 years and older with a proper license to carry a gun on college campuses. Ten states prohibit guns at colleges and universities without exception; ten prohibit them everywhere except in vehicles on campus parking lots.
Opponents of the law say that having more guns on campus simply makes the campuses less safe.
Gesturing toward the new monument, and reflecting on the emotions it could evoke, James added bluntly: “I just hope it gets guns off this campus, and gets rid of campus carry”.
As the Campus Carry law goes into effect on Monday, universities across the state will face the day they have prepared for over a year.
In total, the UH Police Department has spent thousands of dollars to prepare for campus carry.
The other USA states allowing “campus carry” include Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah, and Wisconsin.
The timing is more than coincidence; the new Texas law, approved by the legislature in 2015, was enacted as a supposed protective measure for students.
The University of Texas system’s flagship university in Austin, with its famed clock tower in the background.
Third-year student Courtney Dang, speaking out against the law, said that the idea of more guns on campus scares her. Currently, Amberton University, which doesn’t allow students under 21 and has a total enrollment under 2,000, is the only private school that has opted to allow guns.
Senate Bill 11 authorizes handgun license holders to carry their concealed handguns on campus and also required each university to develop specific guidelines regarding campus concealed carry. At UT Austin, teachers will be allowed to designate their offices as gun-free zones. Most of the signs are near labs where students work with flammable chemicals. The incident was the first mass shooting on a campus, and the university tried to avoid bringing it up for decades.
Community colleges have until August 1, 2017, to comply with the campus carry law, but CTC has about 300 students that attend classes at Texas A&M-Central Texas and CTC. The former dean of the University of Texas School of Architecture left for a position at the University of Pennsylvania because of his opposition to allowing guns on campus.
The University of Texas at Austin tried to keep campus-carry start separate from the memorial. “Those same legislators failed to listen to assault survivors who testified that a weapon would have made the situation much worse”.
Advertisement
“It is something that needed to be done to help with the healing and closure for the victims”, said Austin police officer Monika McCoy, whose father, Houston McCoy, was one of the Austin police officers who climbed the tower 50 years ago and shot Whitman.
