Gun bill has University of Texas chancellor worried

[jpak]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7446640.html

University of Texas System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa said students, faculty and administrators worry that proposals to allow concealed handguns on Texas college campuses will make schools more dangerous.

Cigarroa expressed his concerns to Gov. moran Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. moran David Dewhurst and state lawmakers in a letter dated Thursday. The Legislature is considering bills that would allow anyone with a concealed handgun license, which would include some students, faculty and staff, to carry their weapons into campus buildings.

"I would be remiss in my duties as chancellor of the state's largest university system, if I did not convey my concerns regarding this issue," Cigarroa wrote.

The UT system has nine university campuses and several more health science and medical school facilities.

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Smart folks agree - republican gun laws suck

yup

[derby378]

1. Looks like someone's trying to stack the deck around these parts

Just sayin'...

[jpak]

2. All the news that's fit to post

yup

[derby378]

3. You mean spam

Three posts within 12 hours on the same subject?

I hear a Monty Python song about canned meat products...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE&feature=fvsr

[east texas lib]

4. Spampak.

It's what's for dinner...and breakfast...and lunch...and dinner...and breakfast...and lunch...ad infinitum.}(

[Hoopla Phil]

10. I love that bit!!!

[lawodevolution]

5. This guy better get ready for all the blood that will spill when this passes by the toddlers and

Felons with CHL's conceal carrying ak47 machine guns at drunken frat parties on campus and think of the foreign students on student visas with CHL taking 50 calibres of terror in their backpacks. They'll have duals all day long and terrorists with CHLs and cats and dogs with CHLs on campus with 80 cal anti-tank guns in their pockets

How many lies/errors are their in my anti-CCW on campus argument above?

[PavePusher]

6. "I would be remiss in my duties as chancellor of the state's largest university system..."

You most certainly are remiss, Mr. Chancellor, in not having argued the facts, and bringing only unsubstantiated bullshit to the discussion.

By the way, j, when you post quotes, you need to keep your opinionated editorializing outside the marks.

[GreenStormCloud]

7. He will learn to live with it. Especially when it passes and nothing happens. N/T

[Loki]

8. Guns don't belong on a college campus.

Not everyone needs to carry a gun to make them feel like a man.

[armueller2001]

9. Especially not those women

who carry to prevent rape or assault. I'd imagine they carry to make up for the disparity in upper body strength between the average man and the average woman... not to "feel like a man"

[petronius]

12. Why not? What's so magical about a campus that sets it apart from any other public space?

If some law-abiding person chooses to exercise the right to carry on the street leading to the campus, why should that right evaporate at the campus boundary? :shrug:

[Loki]

14. Why does your 2nd amendment "right"

trump every other right that I have? Is is without exception? I guess in your mind it is, but there we disagree. I have a right to free speech, but not to yell "fire" in a theater. I don't believe that everyone who chooses to carry is "law-abiding" or a person who has enough sense and intelligence to know when and where a gun actually belongs. It doesn't belong everywhere,just like I can't yell "fire" everywhere. But you and I will never agree because you will never accept that I actually don't feel safer knowing that people are packing. Accident's happen every day and people and children lose their lives because of the negligence of someone who legally and "law-abiding" owns a weapon. So that's the price I have to pay, someone in my family or my friends just is shit out of luck because we get to be your accident. In your mind the boundaries are endless and intrusive and I just have to put up with it, right? No I don't. I own weapons, I always have, but I have never felt the need to carry them around to feel safer. I worked at an inner city hospital for 16 years, and never came close to having the need for that kind of intervention. But all you see is danger everywhere and the only thing you think is a deterrent is a gun. Statistics will never change your mind, you'll just find more to prop up your own ideology. I don't believe the founding father's ever intended for the 2nd amendment to be interpreted this way, and we will continue to disagree.

[friendly_iconoclast]

15. I certainly accept that you don't feel safer. You have the right to feel anyway you wish.

[Atypical Liberal]

16. You need to ask yourself why you feel like you feel.

I don't believe that everyone who chooses to carry is "law-abiding" or a person who has enough sense and intelligence to know when and where a gun actually belongs.

Why do you believe this? Take a look at this data for Texas:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=118&topic_id=374332

Data has been posted here for Florida and other states also.

What the data shows is that people with concealed carry permits hardly ever break the law. Not just firearm-related laws, any law. People in Texas with CCW permits are something like 30 times less likely to commit a crime than your average non-CCW-permit-carrying citizen. People with CCW permits in Texas account for less than one-quarter of one percent of all convictions from everything from Public Lewdness to Homicide.

The reason why should not surprise you. Getting a CCW permit in most places is a pain in the butt. You have to go down to your local sheriff and fill out paperwork. You have to pay a fee. You have to undergo a background check and wait. Often you have to be fingerprinted. All of this just to carry a firearm. Why do they do it? Because these people want to obey the law. They are willing to go out of their way and undergo the inconvenience and expense of obtaining a lawful CCW permit for a completely voluntary endeavor. A thug would just stick a gun in their waistband and call it good. But CCW permit holders are interested in obeying the law. So it is not surprising that they tend to be law-abiding generally. In fact, they are so law abiding that many states are now coming to the conclusion that it's just not worth the expense of issuing CCW permits, and now no longer require them.

But you and I will never agree because you will never accept that I actually don't feel safer knowing that people are packing.

Again, you are basing your position based on feelings. You need to ask yourself why you feel the way you feel, because your feelings are irrational given the facts. The fact is, if you had to choose to surround yourself with CCW permit holders or average, non-CCW-holding citizens, you would statistically be tens of times safer surrounded by CCW permit holders!

Accident's happen every day and people and children lose their lives because of the negligence of someone who legally and "law-abiding" owns a weapon.

Accidents do happen every day. But firearm accidents are more rare than poisonings. You can go roll your own query with the CDC's WISQARS database:

http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html

You are about 10 times more likely to be involved in a non-fatal bicycle accident (some 500,000 injuries a year) than a firearm accident (some 17,000 injuries a year). And bicycles are just slightly more likely to kill you in a fatal accident than firearms. You're about 20 times more likely to be killed from poisoning than a firearm, and 10 times more likely to be killed by poisoning than a firearm.

Statistics will never change your mind, you'll just find more to prop up your own ideology.

Pot, meet kettle.

You really, really need to go to the CDC's web site and compare firearm-related deaths and injuries to other kinds of deaths and injuries. Your fear of people who carry firearms in public is completely irrational.

[PavePusher]

17. Someone's peaceful exercise of the Second Amendment does not "trump" any of your rights...

unless, of course, you have evidence to the contrary...

[Marengo]

18. You don't have the right to feel safe

Therefore, none of your rights are trumped and your perception of need is not the standard by which others are obliged to observe.

"I own weapons, I always have...

:eyes:

[petronius]

19. I see other people have responded to some of your points, but I'm still curious:

what is it about a university that makes it a place where guns just don't belong? We hear that claim about all kinds of places, but there's never any justification provided. So what is it? Just an opinion?

Your "fire!" analogy doesn't work; any comparable action with a gun is already illegal.

And your argument about your family paying the price for someone else's accident applies just as well to the weapons you say you own. Why is it different for you?

You accuse pro-carry people of denying statistics, but in fact the statistics are not on your side. The accidents you profess to fear are less common than the crimes gun-carriers wish to be prepared for. So, if they're irrational for being concerned about statistically unlikely crimes, how much less rational are you for worrying about even less likely accidents?

I do not see a valid rationale for your no-guns-on-campus stance, just an unsupported opinion about 'sacred space' and a statistically illogical concern about accidents. Your feelings - even fear - are irrelevant, just as mine would be about any legal activity you choose to engage in. Emotions aren't a good basis for policy, and your beliefs about what other people need carry no weight.

(By the way, I don't carry a gun and never have, so any assumptions you're making about my world-view or sense of personal safety are likely erroneous. However, I'm not made nervous by any of my fellow law-abiding citizens who choose to carry...)

[Loki]

22. As I said before

the gun rights ideology dismisses every person who has a different opinion or world view as less important than their right to carry a gun anywhere they want to. The chancellor of this university (who might have a very valid opinion as to the safety and validity of allowing students to carry guns on campus) is dismissed as knowing nothing. The US has one of the highest gun violence rates per capita in the civilized world, people carrying guns hasn't stopped this, the death penalty hasn't stopped people from murdering people. I still believe that it's your right to carry a firearm, but I also believe that you don't have the right to carry it anywhere you want to.

[PavePusher]

23. Both you and the Chancellor could try presenting facts and evidence....

instead of merely whinging about the sky falling.

That would give some credibility to your opinion.

P.S. You could also try addressing the questions posed to you....

[WatsonT]

28. Pshaw

gun enthusiasts just use facts to support their arguments to make them feel like real men.

People who are secure with their penis size know you can just say whatever you want and make it true.

[petronius]

29. You are certainly entitled to your own opinion, no one has a right to deny you that. And I certainly

don't wish to give the impression that I dismiss people with different opinions from mine as less important or know-nothings - that wouldn't be fair either. However, opinion is far from compelling as an argument or a source for policy. I have plenty of opinions about all sorts of things, some held rather strongly, but I don't expect anyone else to change their behavior or enact rules merely on the strength of my unsupported opinion.

You mentioned statistics in your first reply to me, but the statistics that have been presented in this thread and others do not support the no-guns-on campus position. By and large, in fact, the data go against most more-gun-control positions. If you're aware of contrasting data, then by all means present it.

Until then, what is being dismissed by me (and others) is the notion that an opinion - "guns don't belong on campus" - carries any weight. Nobody has answered the question why campuses are so obviously wrong for guns. Same for all the other places that have been declared obviously wrong for guns. If it's obvious to you, state why. Explain and defend your position. Don't be offended that people dismiss your opinion as just an opinion because so far that's all it is - what else do expect people to do?

[jpak]

20. Ouch!

:yourock:

[Hangingon]

30. Looks like response 14 was soundly refuted!

OOH that hurts!

[WatsonT]

26. Why does your choice to be afraid of a something

trump everyone elses 2nd amendment rights?

And it is a choice, the numbers don't support such fears.

[GreydeeThos]

13. You are half right

The MAC Smallbore Shooter of the Month of January is Tonya Kocher of Penn State University.

Tonya is new to the Penn State Rifle Team. She is currently a freshman studying criminal justice at the university. She plans on going into some form of law enforcement.

[rl6214]

11. "republican gun laws suck"

Same old shtick, different day.

[jpak]

21. they suck 24/7365

yup

[WatsonT]

27. 24 hours a day for 7365 days

So for a little over 20 years.

When are you starting the clock on this one? It may be over already. The NRA has been around for over a century. As has the GOP.

I think we're in the clear.

[Remmah2]

24. Sounds to me like the chancellor has a problem with women's empowerment.

Co-ed's deserve the right to protect themselves.

[WatsonT]

25. I fully support his right to be worried

that doesn't give him any authority on this but he's free to fret about the boogey man if he chooses.