The state’s controversial “campus carry” law allows students who are at least 21 years old and who have a concealed handgun license to carry their guns at all public colleges and universities. Only one private school – Amberton University – plans to allow guns on campus in 2017, when the law will apply to community colleges and private schools.
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Senate Bill 11, also known as campus carry, took effect Monday, which allows anyone with a concealed license to carry a concealed handgun on campus in permitted areas.
The new Campus Carry law will allow anyone with a license to carry a handgun almost anywhere on campus, including classrooms.
Texas on Monday became the eighth U.S. state to allow guns on campuses – a controversial decision that comes on the 50th anniversary of a deadly sniper rampage at a university.
Three UT Austin professors believe that their free speech rights would be violated since students with guns would create a fearful atmosphere and stifle the open expression of ideas.
72-year-old Clif Drummond, who had been a witness of Whitman’s shooting spree, blasted the decision to enact the new campus carry law on the same day that the college was honoring victims of gun violence.
Do you agree with the campus carry law?
“When I hear there’s another tragic shooting at a university, my heart breaks and I relive every excruciating moment of pain and mental anguish, knowing what the survivors or loved ones of those who are injured are going to go through”, said Adrian Littlefield, a semiretired minister from Kirbyville, Texas, who was severely wounded in the University of Texas attack. Her boyfriend, Thomas Eckman, and their unborn son were killed as her own life hung in the balance.
Campus carry goes into effect at public colleges statewide Monday.
The dean of the University Texas School of Architecture left his position because he disagreed with the presence of guns on campus, FOX reported.
ASU Police Chief James Adams says concealed permit holders will be able to carry their weapons, concealed, throughout the vast majority of the campus.
Other states that have so far allowed concealed guns on campus include Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin.
August 1 marks 50 years since the UT tower shooting, one of the first mass killings in modern American history. If a gun carrier showed up to a building where he didn’t know campus carry was off limits, Moore said he believed the gun owner would walk all the way back to his vehicle, residence, or to the gun lockers to put the gun away.
Claire Wilson James, 1966 tower shooting survivor, and University of Texas at Austin President Greg Fenves.
What do you think about the Texas campus carry law?
“The law still bans guns in sports arenas”.
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Officials at UT were set Monday to rededicate a new memorial to the 1966 shooting: a chunk of granite more than six feet tall, replacing a much smaller plaque.
