The 50th anniversary coincides with the start of a new law in Texas that allows concealed handgun licence holders 21 and older to bring pistols into more places on the campuses of public colleges in the state, including classrooms.
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Private schools are still allowed to ban guns.
“Considering the unique nature of the Amberton student and campus environment, Amberton University has chosen to comply with [SB 11] by allowing individuals with valid handgun licenses to exercise their rights as provided by [the state] to carry their concealed handguns onto Amberton campuses and premises”, Warner said.
UT-Austin President Greg Fenves acknowledged that campus leadership did not do enough in the years after the shooting to support a grieving community. University President Gregory Fenves said he was compelled to allow campus carry under the law.
At the University of Texas Austin campus, third-year student Courtney Dang said the idea of campus carry was scary.
Surrounded by other survivors, some of the fearless officers who stopped the shooter that day and families of the victims, Wilson and others rededicated the university’s Tower Garden and unveiled a monument, a rock engraved with the names of those killed, donated by Cook-Walden Funeral Home.
Fifty years ago, the UT community responded to this tragedy, the first mass shooting at a university, by trying to carry on with normal business. “Some are unstable, and we don’t know who has a gun”, Courtney Dang, a third-year student at the University of Texas, told Reuters.
“Most respondents reported that campus carry had not had much direct impact on student life or academic affairs”, said UT’s subsequent report.
The University of Texas at Austin has ruled that teachers will have the right to designate their offices as gun-free zones, although advocates for campus carry are already lobbying to have those concessions struck down. The killing spree first introduced the U.S.to the concept of a “mass shooting”. “We have found little evidence of campus violence that can be directly linked to campus carry, and none that involves an intentional shooting”.
Now students aged 21 and older with a license to concealed carry will be allowed to enter the majority of public college facilities with their firearm.
He was killed by police after shooting more than 40 people.
Supporters of the new law say that students with guns could prevent some of the carnage inflicted by someone bent on killing on campuses.
But while the words went unspoken, the weight of the new law hung heavy.
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But, for a country struggling with partisan gridlock over gun control even after 2016’s more than270 mass shootings, for many, the simultaneity speaks to a greater irony plaguing the country.
