Op-Ed: Guns on Campus

*I put forth an effort to try to get this published, but the timing didn't work out.  However, I still wanted to share this.  The bill is stalled at the moment (Link), but it is still unclear if it will come up to a vote in the TX legislature.

--


Next fall, students will inundate the University of Texas Co-op on Guadalupe Street to shop for classroom essentials.  They’ll browse textbooks and weekly planners as usual, but if the Texas legislature gets its way, students may face another important decision – which gun holster best matches their new boots. 
      
The Texas legislature is currently debating whether to allow students to carry concealed handguns on campus and, if passed, the outcome would be ironic at best and deadly at worst.  Proponents of the legislation claim that this bill ensures that students are protected on campus.  This argument is flawed for several reasons.
 
Supporters argue that college campuses present grave safety concerns for students and faculty.  Given the attention of the recent, tragic shooting at Virginia Tech, it’s easy to misinterpret this as a common occurrence.  However, shootings at college universities are extremely rare.  NPR only lists eight major shootings from 1966-2007.  When factored in with the total number of students enrolled in colleges (over 500,000 in Texas alone), the threat of a mass shooting becomes negligible, if not infinitesimal.  
 
The bill’s author, Senator Jeff Wentworth (R- San Antonio), says, “This bill is designed to give somebody the ability to defend themselves if a deranged person who is both suicidal and mentally unbalanced comes into the classroom – which has happened.”

Wentworth and other bill cosponsors are overlooking the obvious dangers of mixing firearms with traditional and pervasive college indulgences – excessive alcohol and drug use, to name a few.  Most troubling is the association between alcohol and violent behavior.  A recent College Alcohol Survey finds that alcohol was involved in 58 percent of cases of violent behavior in 2009 – a 10-percent rise since 1994.  

Additionally, this argument ignores the negative impact the law would have on students’ mental security.  Imagine a young freshman student cramming all night for a final exam, only to catch a glance of a pistol in a neighboring student’s backpack before the test begins.  The mere thought that a deadly weapon rests several feet away – tucked between a calculator and a water bottle –might not only distract him during the exam, but it might ultimately deteriorate the value of his college experience.   

Let’s apply that same reasoning to a hypothetical but increasingly common scenario: the campus date rapist.  Let’s say campuses have reported several instances in the last 50 years where mentally unstable students have secretly slipped their fellow students dangerous amounts of a date rape drug.   
 
Now imagine that in response to this rare concern, the state government passes legislation giving university students access to the drug.  The legislators argue that students, now permitted to possess dangerous amounts of the date rape drug, can protect themselves from future campus date rape students by slipping them the drug first and preventing them from inflicting harm.

This is absurd.  The solution to a problem is not more of the problem, and what the Texas legislature is considering is tantamount to exactly that. 


Historically, universities have been regarded as sanctuaries where ideas and beliefs can flow freely and students can attend classes without fear of violence.  The issue of concealed handguns on campus is highly charged and has produced ardent supporters on both sides of the issue.  However, the common ground in this debate comes in the shared desired outcome: a safer environment that fosters higher learning.


If we care to prevent mass shootings, then we should increase gun screenings and licensing procedures.  If we want to protect students from psychotic mass shootings, then why not improve campus security and emergency-response procedures?  But giving students access to the very instrument that wrought mass homicide in the first place, will only create a more dangerous and less secure environment for students.


Last September, the University of Texas responded effectively when a student opened fire at a library.  The response to this received praise from both Austin Police Department Chief Art Acevedo and none other than Governor Rick Perry (strong advocate of the campus concealed hand-gun proposal).  “I want to thank campus officials and law enforcement, including the Austin Police Department, DPS and others, for their swift action, that protected the students and faculty on campus this morning,” Governor Perry said then. 
   
Presently, my alma mater, the University of Texas, and the overwhelming majority of college campuses create secure and welcoming environment for students.  During my time at college, I actually felt safer being on campus and viewed it as a safe haven from some of the more dangerous areas in Austin.  Passage of this bill will harm the sanctity of colleges across Texas and threaten the quality of higher education.  

Students do not currently enroll in college with the fear that they might get shot.  But passing this law would change that.