Campuses debate gun control issues

Not even a year after the most horrific school shooting in this country's history, the debate has been brought back to college campuses.

The debate as to whether students should be allowed to carry a concealed firearm into a college classroom has been a prevalent topic among special-interest groups, university administrators, lawmakers and students alike since that fateful April 16th morning in Blacksburg, Va.

The heart of the debate focuses on whether allowing concealed weapons in a classroom setting can save lives if a catastrophe such as the one at Virginia Tech happens again.

Since the tragedy, groups such as Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC) have sprouted around college campuses nationwide, advocating that students who are concealed handgun license holders should have the right to carry these concealed firearms into university buildings.

The group saw its membership climb in October, adding about 3,000 new student activists to put the group at 7,500 members through October, said W. Scott Lewis, SCCC's spokesman. This spike in membership numbers coincided with an "empty holster" protest university representatives took part in Oct. 22 through Oct. 26. The protest took place at almost all of the 111 universities and colleges represented in the group and had students wearing empty gun holsters around their campuses. There is not a TCU chapter of SCCC. Texas universities with SCCC chapters include the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, Baylor University, Texas Tech University, the University of North Texas, Texas State University, the University of Texas at San Antonio, Stephen F. Austin State University and Angelo State University.

The discussion has even made its way to Texas State where, according to a recent article in the University Star, the campus newspaper, a resolution presented at an Associated Student Government meeting calling for the state legislature to allow concealed weapons to be carried to class.

Lewis, an Austin resident, said critics may be misinformed as to what the group's objective might be in regard to who should have the right to carry a concealed firearm into a classroom.

"This is not a debate about keeping guns out of the hands of immature, substance-abusing college students," Lewis said. "This is a debate about allowing licensed individuals - age 21 and above, in most states - to carry their concealed firearms on college campuses, the same way they carry them virtually everywhere else."

Even though the discussion has become more lively as of late, university officials such as Chancellor Victor Boschini know the serious repercussions that could accompany such a movement.

"I would be opposed to their being allowed to do this in a group living environment," Boschini said. "My gut just tells me, from 20-plus years experience in a campus environment, that this is a recipe for disaster."

Abbie Spangler, the founder of Protest Easy Guns - a grassroots movement "focused on protesting lax U.S. gun laws, which provide criminals and dangerous individuals easy access to guns," she said - agreed with Boschini that the results would be dangerous if they were to be put in place.

Demonstrators with Spangler's group have organized lie-ins involving 32 people lying on the ground for several minutes - a symbolic protest remembering the 32 people killed in the Virginia Tech shootings and the amount of time it took for Seung Hui Cho to obtain his gun.

"Our protest movement believes that students should not have guns on college campuses," Spangler said. "That is completely ridiculous."

Despite the strong push on the part of Spangler and Protest Easy Guns, she said in a Nov. 1 Chronicle of Higher Education article that the level of enthusiasm for this movement was not on par with past influential movements on college campuses.

"Students just don't seem to be caught up in this issue the way they were in the civil rights movement," Spangler said in the article. "I don't know whether things will change because of these demonstrations and other things."

Even with such strong opposition to the idea, the push from SCCC state delegates and licensed concealed firearm holders alike has only intensified since Gov. Rick Perry's proclamation shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings that concealed-weapon license holders should have the right to carry their firearms anywhere in the state. Perry would even go so far as to sign a bill a little more than two weeks after the shootings that would prohibit law enforcement officials from confiscating weapons from license holders in emergency situations.

"It's time for us to have that debate in Texas from the standpoint of whether or not a law-abiding citizen in the state of Texas can take their appropriately licensed and permitted weapon anywhere in this state, whether it's on a college campus or wherever," Perry said April 30. "A person ought to be able to carry their weapon with them anywhere in the state if they are licensed and they have gone through the training.

"The idea that you're going to exempt them from a particular place is nonsense."

Cold Hard Facts

In Texas, an individual 21 or older must meet 15 requirements before successfully obtaining a concealed handgun license, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Some of the requirements include: the individual must not have any felony convictions, must not have any family violence convictions of any kind, must not have any Class A or Class B misdemeanor convictions within the last five years, must not be chemically dependent, must not be disqualified if a court ruling presents the person as being a danger to himself/herself or to others, must pass state and federal fingerprint and background checks, must pass a 10-hour training course on the applicable laws and appropriate use and must pass written and shooting tests.