Texas Campus Carry Ain’t Radical
In yet another advancement for the Second Amendment, the Texas legislature passed a bill May 30 allowing concealed handgun carry on the state’s college and university campuses. The bill has compromises, though, as it allows state schools to create supposed gun-free zones, and it gives private schools the option of forbidding guns on their campuses — like most other private businesses have the right to do. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he would sign the bill, making Texas one of 10 states that allow firearms on college campuses. But by the way some people are talking, you’d think the Lone Star State proposed some radical idea. Baylor University professor Lynn W. Tatum said, “The perception in academia will be that Texas is a free-fire zone with yokels in the classrooms packing heat.” The underlying assumption is that college students are not mature enough to strap on a gun every morning. It’s part of the condescending attitude that although they are legal adults, old enough to vote and be drafted into the military (where they carry guns, by the way), college students are still not recognized as fully adult. Besides, with all the focus on campus rape, Texas did well to remember that an armed society is a polite society.