Texas’ new law allowing concealed handguns in college classrooms, buildings and dorms has barely started and already faces a legal challenge seeking to block it before students return for the fall semester.
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AUSTIN – University of Texas at Austin President Gregory Fenves on Monday said he expected the school to be as safe as it ever has been following the implementation of the state’s campus carry law.
A stone memorial to the 16 people and one fetus who died in the August 1, 1966, mass shooting is seen ahead of it being officially delegated at a ceremony that marks the 50th anniversary of the killing at the University of Texas in Austin.
Campus Carry has been controversial since it was first introduced in the Texas legislature.
The Texas law allows students over the age of 21, with permits and training, to carry on campus.
Officials told the Austin American-Statesman it was a coincidence that the law took effect 50 years to the day after the UT shooting.
Texas is one of the nine states that allow people to carry concealed weapons.
“It’s definitely concerning to know that in a lecture hall there could be dozens of guns in bags and I mean I know people have had accidents with guns discharging unintentionally”, said Taylor Turcott, a Texas A&M Student. Meanwhile, 18 states and Washington, D.C., either prohibit guns on campus or allow colleges to decide for themselves whether to allow guns on campus.
State Attorney General Ken Paxton has said bans of guns in dorms is a violation of the law and would be hard to enforce as the law requires universities to create guidelines for storing guns in dorms.
Following passage of a state law in 2015, Texas is now officially the eighth and the largest state to allow firearms on college campuses. “Some are unstable and we don’t know who has a gun”, she said.
He also stresses that open-carry is still strictly prohibited throughout the university and that they do not expect campus-carry to produce many issues.
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.
The law will not come into effect at community colleges and junior colleges until 2017, however. University of Texas chancellor William McRaven, the former commander of United States Special Operations, and an unlikely opponent of the legislation, says that guns on campus would not make anyone safer.
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Among those who urged state lawmakers not to approve campus carry was Claire Wilson James, the first person Whitman shot.
