Texas senate approves guns in college classrooms

[Shroom Man 777]

The Whitman shooter's weapon: Remington 700 A cursory google search gave me a range of 100 yards, which is 90 meters.[...] M9, the standard sidearm of the US military. It's range is... 50 meters. [...]

It's not quite as clear-cut as you make it sound, although I'm sure people who have no idea about firearms would have happily laughed at me with you.

Bullets don't just drop at their effective range, and suppressive fire does not require sufficient accuracy to hit a man-sized target at the specified range. People hunt with pistols zeroed for 100 yards. That's shooting to kill, at 300 feet. Now, that's for a .357-class cartridge, and slant range to the top of a 300-foot tower will be longer, and have gravity losses, and this is a high-stress situation. But we're talking about suppressive fire, from multiple shooters (higher hit probability), and if this is a CCW environment, those firearms would have been returning fire at the first shot, rather than Whitman shooting fish in a barrel until firearms could be retrieved.

Yet you make it sound utterly absurd that pistols would have been any use.

My point was that small concealable weapons had nothing to do with suppressing the Whitman shooter and they were in fact rifles and so on, so using the Whitman incident isn't really useful for the argument of concealed carry weapons because the Whitman incident had nothing to do with handguns. But you already answered to Simon regarding that, so eh.

And I know guns, man. The rifle's 100 yard range isn't definite since wind and gravity and moving targets (and targets shooting back) will be affecting the shooter. So his actual range is going to be definitely less than the weapon's on paper range.

I was also basing my conclusions on an obtuse comparison of military/weapon hardware using trivia and statistics most people don't care about and I would've graphed it if I could. As the Remington 700 was manufactured in 1962, that would've made my graph a 1960s graph.

Yes, people shooting back with rifles or pistols would be useful in the case of a maniac with a sniper rifle. Or a maniac with a knife. I'm a gun owner, so I understand that people should be able to defend themselves with their firearms. But crap, why are they/you Americans so crazy about it that guns must be brought to school? Man. Over here, our gun laws are even less strict than yours and we laugh at those silly prohibitions on submachineguns and assault rifles. But I am still puzzled with this whole American thing with guns.

[Winston Blake]

I'm a gun owner, so I understand that people should be able to defend themselves with their firearms. But crap, why are they/you Americans so crazy about it that guns must be brought to school? Man. Over here, our gun laws are even less strict than yours and we laugh at those silly prohibitions on submachineguns and assault rifles. But I am still puzzled with this whole American thing with guns.

American gun culture is also puzzling to me. It makes me think of someone getting in their car in the morning and revving it as hard as they can, while swinging the wheel back and forth and making enthusiastic racecar noises.

I was aware that you are a gun owner, considered you mentioned it in this very thread, and earlier ones. So I wasn't actually saying you yourself had no idea about firearms (this should be evident upon re-reading). Two other things I would like to point out are:

To be clear, I am not actually supporting this law. Nor am I opposing it. I haven't examined this issue or the facts and statistics closely enough to draw a reasoned conclusion, and I frankly don't have the time to do so for the foreseeable future. [snip position]

Location: Brisbane, Australia

Also, don't worry, your post will always be a 1960s graph in my heart.

[Shroom Man 777]

Like what PeZook told me some time ago, countries like Finland have gun ownership rates as high as America, yet the crime is way lower than equivalent lax gun-law American states. Other countries have way tighter gun laws than America, and their crime is also way lower than American states with the tightest gun laws. Finland, with lots of guns, might even have lower crime rates than an American state with way tighter gun laws.

So maybe the problem with gun ownership in America isn't really the gun ownership.

[Spoonist]

Like what PeZook told me some time ago, countries like Finland have gun ownership rates as high as America, yet the crime is way lower than equivalent lax gun-law American states. Other countries have way tighter gun laws than America, and their crime is also way lower than American states with the tightest gun laws. Finland, with lots of guns, might even have lower crime rates than an American state with way tighter gun laws.

So maybe the problem with gun ownership in America isn't really the gun ownership.

[nitpick] Don't know if its necessary but I just felt like pointing out that the type of 'gun' matters. In finland and sweden we have lots of hunters with rifles/shotguns plus a bunch of state militia with military weapons making up the vast bulk of the 'guns'. Not something you'd bring on your person and if you did it would be pretty obvious. Add to that that this is mostly in non-urban areas.
In the US a larger percentage of 'guns' are handguns which are easy to bring and conceal. Plus a much higher percentage is in urban areas. [/nitpick]

[Anguirus]

Is it not relevant to this board's gun lobby (who are usually very effective and spot-on, I will add) that judging by the testimony to the state legislature, most of the people who would be affected by this are opposed to it?

You know, it's usually law-abiding citizens and good students who flip the fucking fuck out when a TA or a prof in my own department gives them a grade that means they can't go to med school. I have no trouble at all believing those individuals are seeing a red haze for a time. In other words, I mistrust CCW owners about as much as I mistrust every other young human being on the planet. It's just that enabling crimes of passion is not something that the legislature need concern itself with.

If anything, I believe that when this law finally gets rammed down our throats (in a graphic demonstration in how ideology in the rest of the state is more relevant than practicality at the few, densely-populated square miles it affects) it will have a lesser impact than many of its opponents suppose. We will all continue to go about our days, and no one will get shot. The campus will, in some impossible-to-quantify way, be safer/less safe, who can say?

And yet, the reputation of UT, which still stands tall despite the drubbing we periodically get from the legislature, will take another blow. Many job candidates don't give us a second look for ideological or practical reasons elated to the fact that we are the most prominent research university that does not support same-sex partners. Now we're going to be "the gun school." Fair or not, it hardly matters, because not only are most professors liberal, but also they consider themselves to be unfairly placed in danger by this law. Watch the video I posted. Not only will professors not come, but ones already here will leave, or turn their classes into jokes.

It should be emphasized that I don't agree with this predicted reaction. I think it's an overreaction, with a slight addition of moral cowardice. Moreover I think the effects Dr. Cummings alludes to may be exaggerated (but she's done the groundwork, while I have not). But, we are regardless talking about a very real and concrete effect of this law, unlike the Whitman 2.0 scenario that these threads unavoidably wind up salivating over.

When you get right down to it, it is sometimes the duty of a professor or a TA like me to fuck up someone's life beyond all recognition. It makes me feel less safe and secure in my duties to allow CCW on campus. The school is a place of learning and a distinct legal entity. Whining about how obtaining the ability to legally conceal a deadly weapon wherever you go mildly inconvenienced you doesn't win anyone over on the other side.

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh, Anguirus, go curl up into an armadillo kaiju ball! I am sure the presence of concealed firearms on students will never affect the student-teacher dynamic where teachers fuck over dumb ass students, and students get all pissed at it but can't do shit because they're students and have to owe up to their fuckups. I am sure nobody will feel intimidated by the fact that some students may be holding guns, and that these guys packing heat will totally not act in any way different than when they weren't bringing any weapons. Nope, not at all. After all, concealed carry permits were totally mentioned in the Constitution, it's the universities and the ivory tower liberal elite and anti-gun pussies who are being stupid about this! Bringing guns everywhere is the normal state of affairs, it's not being allowed to carry weapons that's the wrong and abnormal state here. Silly Japanese kaiju, you!

[SVPD]

I should point out that the idea that guns will 'intimidate' teachers or anyone else, represents a misconception about how concealed carry works.

Concealed carry means precisely that: Concealed carry. If you are carrying concealed, you are expected to not only keep your weapon out of view, but not to hint at its presence, allow it to "accidentally" be seen, or in any way display it directly or indirectly. That's precisely because display of a weapon can be intimidating. Long arms are generally exempt from this because you A) can't conceal them and B) only usually carry them around for activities that specifically need one, like hunting and so concealed carry doesn't apply. It's acceptable and understandable that occasionally someone will spot a weapon, but you better have made a real effort to conceal it.

This is already the case for all concealed carry, including that by off-duty law enforcement officers. If you are carrying a weapon openly (which includes making no real attempt to conceal it, such as in a shoulder holster with an open sportcoat) you better be displaying a badge as well, or in a uniform. When I go someplace off duty, my weapon is always completely concealed, and I never carry it without my badge and credentials; to do so is not permitted. I don't go out displaying a badge off duty because, quite frankly, everyone doesn't need to know what I do.

What dos this mean? It means that the people objecting to it, as far as I can tell, do not know the first thing about concealed carry. They simply have this image in their head of some gun-toting student walking into their office, being belligerent, and showing off his gun and hinting that if they don't get a better grade, something bad will happen.

People who can qualify for concealed carry licenses generally don't engage in this kind of behavior; if they did they most likely do not have the clean background they would need to qualify. People's behavior does not generally change just because they have a gun; it does not have any power over one's basic psychology. People who understand the rules of civilized behavior don't suddenly disregard it just because they have a gun; those that don't regard it generally don't whether they have a gun or not.

Concealed carry training includes all this information as well; the rules for how one is required to carry it, and the potential consequences for "Displaying" it or "brandishing" it without good cause. Threatening, menacing, or intimidating people without a gun is already a crime, and using a gun to do it makes it much more severe. People who have concealed carry permits are told this in no uncertain terms in their training; very few people who are responsible enough to get a permit (and part of that responsibility is shown in the fact that they care enough to pay the money and follow the law rather than just carry one because they damn well please) will want to risk a felony, and possibly a long jail sentence for a crime committed with a firearm.

I have not yet seen an objection to this law that indicates the objector really grasps this. They seem to think it will be a free-for-all of gun-toting students. If a student does try to intimidate a professor, they can be arrested and charged. If they shoot a professor, they obviously can be as well, and someone who was going to shoot a professor over a grade would be damn likely to just go get a gun and do it regardless of a permit. People with concealed carry permits almost never just start blasting away because of an argument; few people completely lose control of themselves to that degree even during a heated exchange, and having a gun does not mysteriously reduce a person's self control.

As it is, I would tell these professors that people carry guns around them all the time (as in, not just on campus), and probably even some of their students simply ignoring the prohibition. They just don't notice. They are comforted by thinking weapons are not around them, but.. they are.

As to alcohol.. There's some risk there, yes, mainly of students taking their weapons when they go drinking, or coming back to their room drunk and fucking around with it. Mostly, however, the risk is of accidental discharge, due to the carelessness that goes with being drunk. That's still bad, but as a general rule people who can avoid getting in fights drunk can avoid shooting someone drunk. I'd say that the accident risk is far, far less than the issue of drunk driving.

[Anguirus]

^ Yes, but perception, whether accurate or not, is a lot more relevant here than actual shooting incidents (which we can agree are and will remain vanishingly rare). Professors, our university president, the chief of police of the city, and literally all of my co-workers who have voiced an opinion are all outspokenly opposed.

As it is, I would tell these professors that people carry guns around them all the time (as in, not just on campus), and probably even some of their students simply ignoring the prohibition. They just don't notice. They are comforted by thinking weapons are not around them, but.. they are.

You CANNOT have it both ways. If you found the status quo acceptable, then you wouldn't be for changing the law.

You can't just tell someone not to feel intimidated by legal CCW on campus. You have to make a positive argument. Unfortunately, the positive argument is all about Whitman 2.0. (Oh, and "maybe we could have shot that one kid before he killed himself!")

Grassroots supporters of CCW, few and well-funded as they are, decided to strongarm this through the legislature instead of effectively convincing the people who work on campus every day. They won. Big surprise. By convincing several dozen legislators instead of several thousand employees, they got what they wanted (guns in our midst and the satisfaction of achieving an ideological agenda) and pissed everybody the hell off. Congratulations?

[Simon_Jester]

What dos this mean? It means that the people objecting to it, as far as I can tell, do not know the first thing about concealed carry. They simply have this image in their head of some gun-toting student walking into their office, being belligerent, and showing off his gun and hinting that if they don't get a better grade, something bad will happen.

People who can qualify for concealed carry licenses generally don't engage in this kind of behavior; if they did they most likely do not have the clean background they would need to qualify.

Have you seen statistics on the behavior of college-age adults with a concealed carry permit versus those of older adults with the same permit? It would seem easier to have a clean record despite your deep-buried anger management problems at 20 than it is to have one at 30 or 40, for obvious reasons.

People's behavior does not generally change just because they have a gun; it does not have any power over one's basic psychology. People who understand the rules of civilized behavior don't suddenly disregard it just because they have a gun; those that don't regard it generally don't whether they have a gun or not.

The source of this concern among professors is that they already sometimes have to deal with students who feel the rules shouldn't always apply to them... but who, so far as the professors know, have no prior history of mental illness or criminal activity. They're not thugs, they're pre-med students at a prestigious university, for crying out loud... but when they don't study and wind up with a shitty grade that endangers their long term prospects, some of them snap.

Given the social profile these students fit, why should professors be surprised if some of them can obtain concealed carry permits?

[Alyrium Denryle]

It's nice to see someone acknowledge the fact that laws against guns on campus don't do anything to actually keep them off campus. If this legislation gets signed into law, the law abiding will be on an equal footing with the lawless. Toot toot.

Do you have math problems? Here we will define our terms.

X is the number of students who carry a gun without a permit. u is the probability that they will snap and kill someone/get drunk and use a gun etc.
Y is the number of students who will carry a gun with said permit. n is the probability that they will snap and kill someone/get drunk and use a gun etc.

Before this law passes, the probability S of a shooting or other gun crime is:

S=X*u

Now, it is:

S=X*U+Y*n

So, there is now an increase in the probability of a gun related crime. The state of being a person willing to go without a permit, and the state of being unwilling without, but willing with one may or may not affect the respected probabilities of committing a gun related crime. This is because other things happen than someone being a mustache twirling villain. Scitzophrenia for example tends to manifest in the mid 20s, so too does bi-polar disorder and a bunch of other mental illnesses. If a person has an undiagnosed mental illness, they can have a gun perfectly legally, and because our healthcare system sucks, most people with potentially dangerous mental illnesses go undiagnosed. Moreover, the actual enforcement of that provision is impossible unless the mentally ill person voluntarily discloses, or was found not guilty of a crime by reason of mental defect etc. This is because HIPPA prevents government access of the records.

Also: People get drunk. People snap under pressure. People walk in on their girlfriend cheating on them and go ballistic (pun intended). The point being, a person's criminal record is simply not a good predictor of whether or not they may engage in gun-related crime, particularly because college students tend not to HAVE criminal records because they are A) Young and B) Self-selected out because they are not eligible for financial aid.

Concealed weapons will have an almost zero probability of preventing gun violence, because of the crowded conditions on a university campus. If there is a Crazy Shooter, the CCW holder is liable for any injury or damage cause by that weapon, so the smart ones will not use it. The dumb ones are more likely to shoot a bystander anyway, and only increase confusion for the police, because one shooter will become multiple shooters. Moreover, crimes where target hardening would be useful as a deterrent (like muggings and street rape) are VERY uncommon on university campuses.

Thus, for the risk of an increase in the probability of gun violence on campus, there is no measurable benefit, and in fact a high probability of increased cost. Ideology<Cost/Benefit Analysis.

Now, I am speaking as someone directly affected by this law. Someone does not need to brandish a gun at me to intimidate me. It is the same reasoning behind the idea that CCWs prevent crime through increasing the risk to would-be criminals. The probability that there are one or more students in my class who are armed will make me less comfortable flunking half of them. Why? Because those premed students are high stress, and I have seen them go batshit. I have been stalked and harassed by students over (much deserved, they sucked) grade anxiety and anger. While not very quantifiable (yet) the possibility of a gun incident is not outside the realm of probability. I will still flunk people out of spite for shitty students, but I might be a bit more paranoid in my movements than I otherwise would be.

Then there is the perception issue. Yes, it will damage the ability of the UT system to get new faculty. There is no real question about that. It WILL occur.

[SVPD]

Have you seen statistics on the behavior of college-age adults with a concealed carry permit versus those of older adults with the same permit? It would seem easier to have a clean record despite your deep-buried anger management problems at 20 than it is to have one at 30 or 40, for obvious reasons.

All right, while this is basically true, what are "deep buried anger management problems?" In Texas, the minimum age is 21, not 18, to carry a handgun. This generally means only Seniors, or students starting later in life with a little adult experience, will be the ones able to obtain the permit. Granted, 21 does not make you nearly as mature as 30 or 40, but it is a big improvement over 18. Moreover, that's 3 years of adult experience where "deep-seated anger management issues" should come to the forefront. If you can't keep yourself from getting violent when you're frusterated, the vast majority of people will encounter a situation that brings them to that level at some point before hitting age 21

Second, I'm not really sure what a "deep-seated" anger management issue is supposed to be. People who have anger management issues rarely appear to not have them and then just go buck-ass wild one day. If they do, that really indicates that they manage anger well, and someone finally pushed them too far; I don't quite get how in other than exceedingly rare instances, such a person is going to just snap and start blasting away. Even if they do, this person will still be aware of the difference between shooting someone and punching someone. The sort of truely blind rage where a person is not in control of themself at all is not common in the least.

The source of this concern among professors is that they already sometimes have to deal with students who feel the rules shouldn't always apply to them... but who, so far as the professors know, have no prior history of mental illness or criminal activity. They're not thugs, they're pre-med students at a prestigious university, for crying out loud... but when they don't study and wind up with a shitty grade that endangers their long term prospects, some of them snap.

Pre-med students "snap"? How so? They get angry? Yell? So what? Do they hit their professors? I am not aware that medical professors regularly get punched out by angry pre-meds.

Most people feel that to some degree or another, rules do not apply to them, especially rules that are subjective judgement calls in nature, which much academic grading is, or which have minor consequences. This does not, in any way, translate to a feeling that laws against murder, or assault with a deadly weapon, is not a rule that applies to them. I have stopped many people who have concealed carry permits. Some of them were very angry at me about it. Not one ever made a move for their weapon.

Given the social profile these students fit, why should professors be surprised if some of them can obtain concealed carry permits?

They shouldn't be surprised. So what? Don't these professors fit similar social profiles, all being people with deep interest in, in the example you gave, medicine? Can't they get their own?

As I pointed out above, the only reason the professor feels intimidated is that this student might have a concealed carry permir, might be carrying a weapon, and might, maybe, possibly, have some remote chance of being a closet psychopath who will blast him over a shitty grade. Yet thes students could already go and obtain a gun and shoot their professors over harm to their future prospects as it stands. Lack of a concealed carry permit is not, and is not intended to be, a barrier to nutcases; it can't do that. What it is intended to do is keep law-abiding people law abiding, by reminding them of their responsibilities, and ensuring that they fully understand what their responsibilities are.

[SVPD]

^ Yes, but perception, whether accurate or not, is a lot more relevant here than actual shooting incidents (which we can agree are and will remain vanishingly rare). Professors, our university president, the chief of police of the city, and literally all of my co-workers who have voiced an opinion are all outspokenly opposed.

Uh, so what? As far as I can tell, this arises from a complete misconception about what concealed carry does, in terms of allowing people to carry guns (they can only carry them with no display whatsoever; you should not even know they are there) and what it does to prevent shootings (nothing).

As for the police chief, I don't know why he would think 21-year-old college students are more of a problem than 21-year-olds not enrolled in college.

As it is, I would tell these professors that people carry guns around them all the time (as in, not just on campus), and probably even some of their students simply ignoring the prohibition. They just don't notice. They are comforted by thinking weapons are not around them, but.. they are.

You CANNOT have it both ways. If you found the status quo acceptable, then you wouldn't be for changing the law.

What's this supposed to mean? I find the status quo acceptable; I think the change is equally acceptable, and I have yet to see an argument against it that doesn't make horrendously bad assumptions about how people behave. What I was pointing out is that these professors are already around plenty of people with guns that they don't even know about, some doubtless on the supposedly gun-free campus. Are they intimidated by their fellow citizens every time they go to the gas station? No? Then why would they be intimidated by the same situation on campus?

You can't just tell someone not to feel intimidated by legal CCW on campus. You have to make a positive argument. Unfortunately, the positive argument is all about Whitman 2.0. (Oh, and "maybe we could have shot that one kid before he killed himself!")

Shot which one kid? Unless the "kid" shot only himself, it's more a matter of "maybe we could ahve shot that kid before he killed at least some of those people". No one shoots someone who is only attempting to commit suicide.

As for not being able to "just tell them" no, I can't tell someone how to feel. I can, however, tell them their reasons are not based on the actual facts, and that we do not determine what the laws are based on nothing more than feelings by people who ddo not really understand the ramifications involved.

Grassroots supporters of CCW, few and well-funded as they are, decided to strongarm this through the legislature instead of effectively convincing the people who work on campus every day. They won. Big surprise. By convincing several dozen legislators instead of several thousand employees, they got what they wanted (guns in our midst and the satisfaction of achieving an ideological agenda) and pissed everybody the hell off. Congratulations?

I hate to break it to you, but that is the way the law works in this country. Why exactly should they have to convince the campus employees? Because you're the ones affected? I haven't noticed that when any other employee of a state institution is affected by legislative action, he voters need to go convince that employee it is a good idea. They talk to their legislator.

That is what we have legislators for. Disagreeing with a legislative action does not mean it was "strongarmed"; it means your side lost a vote. Your idea ("gun free" campuses) is no less an ideological agenda than theirs is. Trying to treat "guns in our midst" as inherently negative is simply begging the question; the debate is precisely over that, or, to be a bit more honest, legal permission to carry handguns.

[SVPD]

Do you have math problems? Here we will define our terms.

X is the number of students who carry a gun without a permit. u is the probability that they will snap and kill someone/get drunk and use a gun etc.
Y is the number of students who will carry a gun with said permit. n is the probability that they will snap and kill someone/get drunk and use a gun etc.

Before this law passes, the probability S of a shooting or other gun crime is:

S=X*u

Now, it is:

S=X*U+Y*n

This is not a valid equation. Each gun present does not increase the possibility of "gun crime" by some set factor. Each person armed does not have the same possibility of committing some crime with it.

You have campus, police, do you not? I imagine they are armed on UT campuses. If not, I imagine your local police patrol and are armed as well. Do their guns increase the possibility of "gun-related crime" by X*u? No, they do not, because the possibility that officer will stop a gun crime is much higher than the possibility he will commit one with it. The same applies to CCW holders; there is a possibility for each one they will stop a crime, and not just a gun crime. Rape tends to be a problem on college campuses, for example.

Second, all gun related crime is not created equal. Shooting someone to death is far more severe than just pointing a gun at them which in turn is far more severe than improper carry which might be as simple as forgetting your permit in your room. Yet you aggregate all of them into "gun related crime". Who cares about improper carry? Is that somehow a pressing issue in this debate? Or is it simply a way to inflate the possibility of "gun crime"?

In short, your equation is useless, leaving out a number of major factors, such as police presence, crime severity, and deterrence.

So, there is now an increase in the probability of a gun related crime.

So? It has already been demonstrated that some of this gun crime is utterly trivial (improper carry, improper storage and the like) and the remainder is not all of equal severity; in fact, any crime other than a shooting is essentially irrelevant since the criminal can then be reported and arrested and no one ends up being hurt; we have now demonstrated that this person is irresponsible with weapons and should not be allowed to carry them any more. In any case, you do not know that each CCW weapon causes an aggregate increase in the probability of gun crime. That has never been demonstrated in regular society, so there is no reason to think it is the case on any campus.

The state of being a person willing to go without a permit, and the state of being unwilling without, but willing with one may or may not affect the respected probabilities of committing a gun related crime.

So what?

This is because other things happen than someone being a mustache twirling villain. Scitzophrenia for example tends to manifest in the mid 20s, so too does bi-polar disorder and a bunch of other mental illnesses. If a person has an undiagnosed mental illness, they can have a gun perfectly legally, and because our healthcare system sucks, most people with potentially dangerous mental illnesses go undiagnosed. Moreover, the actual enforcement of that provision is impossible unless the mentally ill person voluntarily discloses, or was found not guilty of a crime by reason of mental defect etc. This is because HIPPA prevents government access of the records.

Yes, and? The same situation pertains to everywhere else in society. What makes campuses special? Moe importantly, why are we making a prohibition based on what might happen, when it is highly likely that it will not happen, and even if it does, it is highly unlikely to result in a shooting.

Most college students are still under their mid 20s and until age 21 they can't even have a permit. Moreover, we let people have access to guns in all sorts of dangerous capacities before their mid 20s; the military, police, security. We let them have access to things much more dangerous than guns. Should we just make 30 the minimum age to be a police officer? I thinkt hat would create a lot of problems.

Also: People get drunk. People snap under pressure. People walk in on their girlfriend cheating on them and go ballistic (pun intended). The point being, a person's criminal record is simply not a good predictor of whether or not they may engage in gun-related crime, particularly because college students tend not to HAVE criminal records because they are A) Young and B) Self-selected out because they are not eligible for financial aid.

Actually, yes,, criminal record is an excellent indicator of potential for gun related crime. Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. A person old enough to have a CCW permit has at least 3 years of adult behavior behind them, and that is more than enough time to accumulate a criminal record.

All of the other things you mentioned happen in regular society; campuses are not somehow special in having people with various stresses having access to guns. Yet when these things result in violence elsewhere, it is almost never by a CCW holder because CCW holders are people that care about behaving in a civilized fashion. That is what makes them care enough to follow the law.

Concealed weapons will have an almost zero probability of preventing gun violence, because of the crowded conditions on a university campus. If there is a Crazy Shooter, the CCW holder is liable for any injury or damage cause by that weapon, so the smart ones will not use it. The dumb ones are more likely to shoot a bystander anyway, and only increase confusion for the police, because one shooter will become multiple shooters. Moreover, crimes where target hardening would be useful as a deterrent (like muggings and street rape) are VERY uncommon on university campuses.

You really need to not comment on tactical matters. CCW has little probabilit of preventing gun violence because there is little gun violence. Crazy shooters, in any case, are not the only sort of violence. I pointed out rape; assault is another. "Stranger danger rape" is rare everywhere, not just on campus, and it is not the only kind of rape.

More importantly, the "smart ones will not use it" is not true, any more than the police would be smart to not use it. College campuses are not wall-to-wall people, and in any case, even the most basic marksmanship instruction (mandatory for CCW) mandates that you only take a shot when you have a shot. Know what is around and behind your target. A "smart" shooter will wait to shoot until he has a clear shot, whether he is a CCW or a law enforcement officer.

As for "confusing the police", unless the shooting starts right in front of us, by the time we get there it will be over if there is bidirectional gunplay. Lengthy shootings like at VT go on and on because no one can stop the shooter. When bullets are flying both ways, one side or the other will be hit and down, or out of ammunition in short order. Yes, that could be the guy with the CCW, but that was his choice, and in any case, he at least forced the shooter to focus on him and expend ammunition against him when he could have been killing others.

Thus, for the risk of an increase in the probability of gun violence on campus, there is no measurable benefit, and in fact a high probability of increased cost. Ideology<Cost/Benefit Analysis.

You have really done nothing other than show that cost and benefit are likely to be affected, and in any case, keeping guns off campus is just as much ideology as allowing them on.

Now, I am speaking as someone directly affected by this law. Someone does not need to brandish a gun at me to intimidate me.

Then you need to get better control of your irrational fears. I actually go looking for criminals with guns; I am not intimidated by them. Respectful of their power? Yes, but being "intimidated" is not an effective way of thinking. There's no reason you should be intimidated by responsible citizens with guns either.

It is the same reasoning behind the idea that CCWs prevent crime through increasing the risk to would-be criminals. The probability that there are one or more students in my class who are armed will make me less comfortable flunking half of them. Why? Because those premed students are high stress, and I have seen them go batshit.

Have you? What exactly is "batshit"? Get upset? I have news for you; people with guns are still allowed the get angry. Its what they do with the gun that matters. "Batshit/Batshit insance" is a term that gets applied to practically anything anyone doesn't like on this board in order to avoid having to treat the subject with precision or seriousness. It doesn't establish anything.

I have been stalked and harassed by students over (much deserved, they sucked) grade anxiety and anger.

Have you? You do realize if they wanted to shoot you, they could easily have done so anyhow? Did you report this? Were they charged? I'd be very interested to hear their side of the story, and that of any third parties. Obviously, that might be very hard for you to accomadate, but I think it should be plainly obvious that if teachers on campus were really already regularly plagued by these problems , we'd have seen a lot more public complaints about it as an ongoing problem, yet mysteriously it now crops up as a complaint.

While not very quantifiable (yet) the possibility of a gun incident is not outside the realm of probability. I will still flunk people out of spite for shitty students, but I might be a bit more paranoid in my movements than I otherwise would be.

Sounds like a personal problem. I hate to break it to you, but the possibility of a "gun incident" is not out of the question anyhow, and what about getting punched? Stabbed? Your students can carry pocket knives around and that 3" blade can kill your ass. Knife wounds can be hard to treat, and knives don't run out of ammunition. Ever seen photos of cut up prison guards after an altercation? Not pretty.

Then there is the perception issue. Yes, it will damage the ability of the UT system to get new faculty. There is no real question about that. It WILL occur.

If the attitude of faculty is represented by this level of concern and this level of ignorance... I think maybe that's a good thing. The job market isn't great right now. You may have to stop thinking of your campus as some sacred enclave.

[Zaune]

I'm going to even tackle the majority of your argument because there are several people reading this thread who are much brighter than me, but I will say this. There is a colossal difference between carrying a weapon as part of your duty as a law-enforcement official and carrying a weapon out of fear of being attacked at random by a complete stranger.

And being so afraid of being attacked by a complete stranger that you insist on carrying a weapon everywhere is not a normal or a healthy mindset to be in. And I should know, I have trouble with it myself.

[SVPD]

I'm going to even tackle the majority of your argument because there are several people reading this thread who are much brighter than me, but I will say this. There is a colossal difference between carrying a weapon as part of your duty as a law-enforcement official and carrying a weapon out of fear of being attacked at random by a complete stranger.

Obviously there is a difference. So what? I was not claiming that there is no difference; I was pointing out that "more guns = more gun crime, in a mathematically proportional relationship" is not valid, and a lot of the other concerns do, in fact, pertain to law enforcement as well.

And being so afraid of being attacked by a complete stranger that you insist on carrying a weapon everywhere is not a normal or a healthy mindset to be in. And I should know, I have trouble with it myself.

There's nothing abnormal or unhealthy about it at all. People do, in fact, get attacked by complete strangers.

[Anguirus]

Uh, so what? As far as I can tell, this arises from a complete misconception about what concealed carry does, in terms of allowing people to carry guns (they can only carry them with no display whatsoever; you should not even know they are there) and what it does to prevent shootings (nothing).

I've tried to clue you in on this SVPD: you are going about this in the wrong way. Alyrium and I work at (different campuses of) UT, we are on the ground and talking to people on the ground. I have already conceded to you that concealed carry is not likely to place people in a great deal of additional danger. What neither of us can control are the results of perception or "misconception" as you put it. When the law is passed, people are going to feel less safe and less secure whether we want them to or not.

As for the police chief, I don't know why he would think 21-year-old college students are more of a problem than 21-year-olds not enrolled in college.

Perhaps you can listen to his testimony. UT is a large part of his responsibility, and the incident that is on everybody's mind (which you have absolutely no knowledge of...see below) would only have been worsened with more guns around.

What's this supposed to mean? I find the status quo acceptable; I think the change is equally acceptable, and I have yet to see an argument against it that doesn't make horrendously bad assumptions about how people behave. What I was pointing out is that these professors are already around plenty of people with guns that they don't even know about, some doubtless on the supposedly gun-free campus. Are they intimidated by their fellow citizens every time they go to the gas station? No? Then why would they be intimidated by the same situation on campus?

Because 1) you have not yet established that, in Alyrium's terms, X is a significant number compared with Y. 2) Someone is obviously lobbying very hard to drop the UT CCW ban, and the stated reasoning is "so that there will be more guns on campus to make us safer." More guns on campus does not make many of us feel safer.

Shot which one kid? Unless the "kid" shot only himself, it's more a matter of "maybe we could ahve shot that kid before he killed at least some of those people". No one shoots someone who is only attempting to commit suicide.

As for not being able to "just tell them" no, I can't tell someone how to feel. I can, however, tell them their reasons are not based on the actual facts, and that we do not determine what the laws are based on nothing more than feelings by people who ddo not really understand the ramifications involved.

2010 UT shooting incident

It was a very theatrical suicide.

Burden of proof is on those who seek to make a change. Campus is already safe, so the material "benefit" is simply "let's anger lots of the people we depend on." Not one ounce of effort has been expended on alleviating the concerns of teachers.

I hate to break it to you, but that is the way the law works in this country. Why exactly should they have to convince the campus employees? Because you're the ones affected? I haven't noticed that when any other employee of a state institution is affected by legislative action, he voters need to go convince that employee it is a good idea. They talk to their legislator.

That is what we have legislators for. Disagreeing with a legislative action does not mean it was "strongarmed"; it means your side lost a vote. Your idea ("gun free" campuses) is no less an ideological agenda than theirs is. Trying to treat "guns in our midst" as inherently negative is simply begging the question; the debate is precisely over that, or, to be a bit more honest, legal permission to carry handguns.

I am not making a legal argument, I'm explaining to you why this law was passed. A tiny, well-funded astroturf movement (plus the comparatively tiny student organization that's pro-concealed carry) just barely triumphed over a MASSIVE yet poorly funded grassroots movement in response. The latter movement was so successful and it flipped so many votes that the bill's sponsor had to resort to dirty tricks to get the bill passed. The bill wasn't strongarmed through the Senate because I oppose it; it was strongarmed because it was strongarmed.

You know nothing of what's going on in my city, you just smelled "Second Amendment!" and proceeded with your programmed course of behavior.

[SVPD]

I've tried to clue you in on this SVPD: you are going about this in the wrong way. Alyrium and I work at (different campuses of) UT, we are on the ground and talking to people on the ground. I have already conceded to you that concealed carry is not likely to place people in a great deal of additional danger. What neither of us can control are the results of perception or "misconception" as you put it. When the law is passed, people are going to feel less safe and less secure whether we want them to or not.

I'm going about what in the wrong way? You just conceded its not likely to materially increase danger. If some people insist on feeling less safe when there is a negligable net change, what, precisely, do you think I should do differently? I'm not trying to convince the staff at UT to think its safe (and I suspect that the unity of opinion among the staff is less complete than has been suggested) because A) that's not my responsibility and B) people who have irrational fears tend not to be comforted by having the facts explained to them. Yes, some people will feel less safe. Some will feel more safe. I don't think either of them is correct, but on that basis I see no reason to oppose this bill. By the same token, if voters and legislators in the state of Texas were not in favor of it, I would see no reason to support it.

Perhaps you can listen to his testimony. UT is a large part of his responsibility, and the incident that is on everybody's mind (which you have absolutely no knowledge of...see below) would only have been worsened with more guns around.

I didn't really hear a material argument from the chief that made much sense. Something is very unlikely to happen? Yes, it is. It is highly unlikely there will be a deranged gunman, it is also highly unlikely that there will be a deranged CCW holder. Police are better trained to respond? Yes. No one is suggesting CCW holders respond; the suggestion is that they would have a chance of protecting themselves and others if they happened to be present at the time. Friendly fire? He mentioned response times of 2-5 minutes in the previous case. A gunman can kill a lot of people in 2 minutes unopposed. By the same token, any exchange will be over in well under 2 minutes (or possibly much longer) for the police to arrive in which case, they should not be just shooting anyone holding a gun; they should observe what that person is doing and respond based on normal use-of-force guidelines. If the police happen to be right there when the gunman starts shooting, they should be evaluating the entire situation to see who the bad guy is, and any CCW holder should be letting them do their job. It is possible everything could go wrong, but that can happen even with only cops present as the chief pointed out, and the chance of the crazy shooter is small enough int he first place that we're talking about a very far-fetched scenario.

Because 1) you have not yet established that, in Alyrium's terms, X is a significant number compared with Y.

I really don't need to. Since Alyrium's terms rely on treating all guns as equal regardless of who is carrying them and handwave away any possibility of a net reduction based on the presence of some of those guns, the entire "mathematical" equation is farcical.

2) Someone is obviously lobbying very hard to drop the UT CCW ban, and the stated reasoning is "so that there will be more guns on campus to make us safer." More guns on campus does not make many of us feel safer.

I don't really care. Them being misguided about being safer does not make you correct about being any less safe. In any case, how campus employees feel is really not something I find convincing; if the arguments put forth here are their reasons I can safely say their fears are based on ignorance. Some people feel that seatbelts make them no safer either because they would rather be thrown clear or feel they could be trapped in a car and no amount of statistical evidence or reasoning from people like me makes them feel any different.

It was a very theatrical suicide.

Burden of proof is on those who seek to make a change. Campus is already safe, so the material "benefit" is simply "let's anger lots of the people we depend on." Not one ounce of effort has been expended on alleviating the concerns of teachers.

Ok, a kid committed suicide. He had an automatic weapon, and he could have done a lot more damage if he wanted. Do you feel any less safe because that happened and the prohibition on guns on campus did not prevent it?

As for the burden of proof, the only burden that needs to be met is that required by the Texas legislature and that's evidently been met to their satisfaction. I agree that failing to pay attention to faculty concerns is crass and insensitive, but by the same token, I am not at all convinced that any amount of proof would alleviate these concerns, since they seem to exist in ignorance of basic facts like what the law allows and prohibits a CCW holder from doing or even what the minimum age to obtain one is.

I am not making a legal argument, I'm explaining to you why this law was passed. A tiny, well-funded astroturf movement (plus the comparatively tiny student organization that's pro-concealed carry) just barely triumphed over a MASSIVE yet poorly funded grassroots movement in response. The latter movement was so successful and it flipped so many votes that the bill's sponsor had to resort to dirty tricks to get the bill passed. The bill wasn't strongarmed through the Senate because I oppose it; it was strongarmed because it was strongarmed.

Where's your actual evidence that one side was astroturf, and the other side was grassroots? Where's your evidence of these "dirty tricks"? Where's your evidence of "strongarming"? This is lot of loaded language trying to pass for a description of legislative process, and if it were that clear-cut, I would think you could describe it to me in neutral language.

You know nothing of what's going on in my city, you just smelled "Second Amendment!" and proceeded with your programmed course of behavior.

Oh, bullshit. I already said I don't think this change will materially affect safety; hardly the typical 2nd amendment fanatic argument, and I said I would have been equally ok with the status quo being maintained. Second, the same could easily be said about you. You just heard "people allowed to carry guns!" and proceeded with your programmed course of behavior.

This is why no one wastes time alleviating your concerns; you are going to hang onto them like gold because admitting they might be baseless means giving up your caricature of anyone disagreeing with you as some sort of gun-worshiping fanatic. After all, its much easier to make snarky comments about "programmed courses of behavior" than it is to utilize reason.

[Anguirus]

I don't really care. Them being misguided about being safer does not make you correct about being any less safe. In any case, how campus employees feel is really not something I find convincing; if the arguments put forth here are their reasons I can safely say their fears are based on ignorance.

You're having the wrong argument again. A bill that we both have agreed will have a negligable effect on campus safety has a good chance of causing professors to leave. This doesn't matter to you, but it matters to me, because I work here.

God forbid it's more important to me to keep our faculty present than to keep the gun lobby happy.

You accomplish a zero or near-zero effect in safety and in return you get a negative impact on the school.

In addition, increasing the number of guns on campus (which the bill's supporters openly advocate) enables suicides, which kill a lot more people on campus than violence.

Ok, a kid committed suicide. He had an automatic weapon, and he could have done a lot more damage if he wanted. Do you feel any less safe because that happened and the prohibition on guns on campus did not prevent it?

I was lucky that I wasn't on campus that day. People were locked in their offices. Nobody knew what the story was. The guy was dead. The guy was holding students hostage. The guy was still at large with an AK. The police came out in force and swept every building. And at the end of the day, the only one who was killed was the self-destructive nutjob. He was firing at the ground. More students with guns would only have put more people in danger.

At the Gabrielle Giffords rally, an innocent guy who disarmed the shooter was almost plugged by a CCW license holder.

So if your lobby can talk about Whitman 2.0 or Virginia Tech 2.0, I can talk up my anecdote, a situation that could only have been made worse by handguns.

Where's your actual evidence that one side was astroturf, and the other side was grassroots? Where's your evidence of these "dirty tricks"? Where's your evidence of "strongarming"? This is lot of loaded language trying to pass for a description of legislative process, and if it were that clear-cut, I would think you could describe it to me in neutral language.

Hmm, I looked up Students for Concealed Carry on Campus and there's no evidence they are astroturf. So I concede that. They hardly had anyone there during the public comment period, compared to the small army of people who showed up lobbying against.

Dirty tricks and strongarming!:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 49116.html
http://www.texasobserver.org/component/ ... t-students
http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-pol ... 98011.html

Basically, Wentworth thought this was a slam dunk, then 150 people testified against, flipped votes, and stalled it out. He attached it to a Democrat's education bill and killed it, then attached it to a fiscal bill to get it passed. Note that an amendment only needs a 50-50 vote, not 2/3.

Sorry I don't have more links, but my internet is acting up horribly.

Ooh, one more. The senators went so far as to make it law that a university's board of regents could not vote to exempt a campus from allowing students to carry guns.

EDIT: One more! This will be a useful resource for both sides: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/topics/ ... n%20Campus

[SVPD]

You're having the wrong argument again. A bill that we both have agreed will have a negligable effect on campus safety has a good chance of causing professors to leave. This doesn't matter to you, but it matters to me, because I work here.

Does it? Where is this "good chance of causing professors to leave"? More to the point, why should we deny people a legal right simply because other people won't like it? I don't believe in an unlimited right to carry guns by any means, but the fact is that there is a licensing process to allow qualified people to have them and so far the ban on campus guns seems to be based on movie stereotypes of college students and exaggerated fears by faculty. I'm not "having the wrong argument" at all; you're just using that in order to avoid dealing with the fact that I know a hell of a lot more about the realities of concealed carry than you do.

God forbid it's more important to me to keep our faculty present than to keep the gun lobby happy.

God forbid you stop using loaded language. Why is it more important to cater to the fears of uninformed, ignorant faculty than allow people to exercise a legal right? See? I can use loaded language to make my argument look stronger too!

You accomplish a zero or near-zero effect in safety and in return you get a negative impact on the school.

I have not seen that thee will be any net negative. Professorships are sought-after jobs; I am quite sure there will be new ones and I see no reason to think they will be worse than the old. I also am not buying that significant numbers of faculty will up and leave over this; that is a major life decision, especially for those with tenure.

In addition, increasing the number of guns on campus (which the bill's supporters openly advocate) enables suicides, which kill a lot more people on campus than violence.

How does it "enable suicide"? To a person that wants to commit suicide, how much of an inconvenience is it, really, to find another method, or go off campus and get a gun?

Suicide prevention is not a matter of taking means away; suicide prevention is addressed by helping people with suicidal thoughts. It's not only weak but rather ghoulish to whip it out as an afterthought in an argument about guns after its revealed your objections are based on misconceptions.

Ok, a kid committed suicide. He had an automatic weapon, and he could have done a lot more damage if he wanted. Do you feel any less safe because that happened and the prohibition on guns on campus did not prevent it?

I was lucky that I wasn't on campus that day. People were locked in their offices. Nobody knew what the story was. The guy was dead. The guy was holding students hostage. The guy was still at large with an AK. The police came out in force and swept every building. And at the end of the day, the only one who was killed was the self-destructive nutjob. He was firing at the ground. More students with guns would only have put more people in danger.

Your first few sentences only point out that shootings are confusing and frightening. Your last sentence is A) your assumption and B) begging the question. You do not actually know that.

At the Gabrielle Giffords rally, an innocent guy who disarmed the shooter was almost plugged by a CCW license holder.

"Almost plugged"? Then he wasn't shot? I don't know of anyone else that was shot by a CCW holder at that rally erroneously, so the evidence is that the CCW holder acted appropriately - as you point out he did not actually shoot the guy. PHrasing it as "almost plugged" is an attempt to make it look like a mistake when it wasn't.

So if your lobby can talk about Whitman 2.0 or Virginia Tech 2.0, I can talk up my anecdote, a situation that could only have been made worse by handguns.

My lobby? I've said repeatedly I don't particularly care about the issue. My reason for getting involved in the thread was to point out how bad the arguments against guns were, not to really argue in favor of them. You're doing a great job, however, of talking me into thinking the gun lobby are the sane ones - especially when you lie about my position repeatedly.

Hmm, I looked up Students for Concealed Carry on Campus and there's no evidence they are astroturf. So I concede that. They hardly had anyone there during the public comment period, compared to the small army of people who showed up lobbying against.

Thank you for your frankness. Standing where during what public comment period?

Dirty tricks and strongarming!:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 49116.html

In that article, the only dirty tricks I see are Democrats trying to kill their own bill after an attempt to attach the CCW on campus provision to it. I don't necessarily agree with attaching things to unrelated bills, but I have to say that happens so frequently in the legislative process that I see no reason this particular instance is a "dirty trick".

http://www.texasobserver.org/component/ ... t-students

No additional information there.

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-pol ... 98011.html

Basically, Wentworth thought this was a slam dunk, then 150 people testified against, flipped votes, and stalled it out. He attached it to a Democrat's education bill and killed it, then attached it to a fiscal bill to get it passed. Note that an amendment only needs a 50-50 vote, not 2/3.

Sorry I don't have more links, but my internet is acting up horribly.

That's sufficient.

Frankly, I don't see much int he way of dirty tricks there - or rather, I see some, but equally on both sides across the 3 links. I don't agree with manipulating vote times, but I also don't agree with pulling your own bill due to an attachment that was approved by the parlimentarian, and by the required majority vote.

Ooh, one more. The senators went so far as to make it law that a university's board of regents could not vote to exempt a campus from allowing students to carry guns.

That link is of abysmal quality compared to your first three; essentially notihng more than an editorial favoring the "against" side. In any case, making it so the board of regents can't exempt the campus strikes me as rather the point in the first place, and if the board of regents thinks the same way about CCW as I've already addressed, they can't be trusted to make the decision based on good reasoning anyhow.

EDIT: One more! This will be a useful resource for both sides: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/topics/ ... n%20Campus

[/quote]

The content there doesn't seem to be about what it says it's about.

[Anguirus]

Does it? Where is this "good chance of causing professors to leave"?

I'm just straight-up preferring Dr. Cummings' testimony on the matter to your speculation. Apologies.

More to the point, why should we deny people a legal right simply because other people won't like it?

That's the only reason to deny anyone any right, when you get right down to it. People create rights, too.

I don't believe in an unlimited right to carry guns by any means, but the fact is that there is a licensing process to allow qualified people to have them and so far the ban on campus guns seems to be based on movie stereotypes of college students and exaggerated fears by faculty. I'm not "having the wrong argument" at all; you're just using that in order to avoid dealing with the fact that I know a hell of a lot more about the realities of concealed carry than you do.

Movie stereotypes? First off, do you work on a college campus? Cause I do. So does Alyrium.

God forbid you stop using loaded language. Why is it more important to cater to the fears of uninformed, ignorant faculty than allow people to exercise a legal right? See? I can use loaded language to make my argument look stronger too!

It's not the first time, either!

I have not seen that thee will be any net negative. Professorships are sought-after jobs; I am quite sure there will be new ones and I see no reason to think they will be worse than the old. I also am not buying that significant numbers of faculty will up and leave over this; that is a major life decision, especially for those with tenure.

That's nice that you think that. Many of UTs programs are quite literally world-class, and it attracts the best and brightest faculty. Hurting our ability to attract and retain faculty really does wound the school.

Apparently you think faculty are largely interchangeable. Now I don't think Dr. Cummings plans to leave, but let's say that she does. Since I think concealed carry will have basically a zero impact on public safety all around (do try to remember that), her leaving would tip the whole thing pretty squarely into the negative column.

How does it "enable suicide"? To a person that wants to commit suicide, how much of an inconvenience is it, really, to find another method, or go off campus and get a gun?

Suicide prevention is not a matter of taking means away; suicide prevention is addressed by helping people with suicidal thoughts. It's not only weak but rather ghoulish to whip it out as an afterthought in an argument about guns after its revealed your objections are based on misconceptions.

It's not only weak, but rather ghoulish to trot out the prospect of a vanishingly rare campus mass shooting to support increasing the number of guns on campus (which is the stated goal of seemingly every campus CCW supporter), and yet it is a staple argument in the debate. (That, and RIGHTS!! which is irrelevant to me because the legality of minor infringements of the right to bear arms is well-established.)

I direct you to this story Funny, it hurts out that guns enable snap life-ending decisions that might have been reconsidered. No one could have guessed that it takes longer to hang yourself or take pills than shoot yourself in the head!

Your first few sentences only point out that shootings are confusing and frightening.

They are confusing and frightening, for students carrying as well as students who aren't. Confused, frightened, early twenties gunholders for the win.

It's also worth pointing out which one of us lives here.

Your last sentence is A) your assumption

No it isn't, it's demonstrably true. The minimum amount of harm from a determined, suicidal gunman was realized. Any other shot fired would have been a) neutral or b) had a negative outcome. Moreover, it would have made the police have to be a lot more careful knowing that there are more guns on campus in the hands of jittery students.

and B) begging the question. You do not actually know that.

No it isn't. A gun wielder can't stand down a suicidal man. There was no conceivable way to lower the harm that was done in the real world by adding more guns. All you have to do is think about the situation in order to come to this conclusion. I'm glad you know the names of some logical fallacies though.

"Almost plugged"? Then he wasn't shot? I don't know of anyone else that was shot by a CCW holder at that rally erroneously, so the evidence is that the CCW holder acted appropriately - as you point out he did not actually shoot the guy. PHrasing it as "almost plugged" is an attempt to make it look like a mistake when it wasn't.

What the hell are you talking about? Since concealed guns were not involved in the subduing of Jared Loughner, and by the time the gun holder arrived on the scene he was contained, the only possible counterfactual is him shooting the innocent hero down.

In the guy's own words, "I could have very easily done the wrong thing and hurt a lot more people." I'm glad that we were able to trust his judgment that day, but I'm the cynical type, and for every X number of people who do the right thing, there will be Y number who do the "wrong." I don't believe that the same person in the same circumstance would do the same thing every time.

Having a pistol increased the chances of him shooting an innocent man. The course of action he elected to perform--helping to subdue Loughner--did not require his pistol, and he did not employ it at all.

My lobby? I've said repeatedly I don't particularly care about the issue.

Uh-huh.

My reason for getting involved in the thread was to point out how bad the arguments against guns were, not to really argue in favor of them. You're doing a great job, however, of talking me into thinking the gun lobby are the sane ones - especially when you lie about my position repeatedly.

Please demonstrate when I have lied about your position. If this is the case, I did not do so deliberately.

Frankly, you "don't care" about the issue so much that you've decided that despite the fact that you agree with me on all of the facts (CCW will have little/no effect on campus safety, professors' fears are overblown), you've decided that putting more guns on campus is more important than keeping our administration, faculty, and police force satisfied. Perhaps I have mistakenly assumed that you share my utilitarian-leaning ethics. Since we agree that CCW does not make anyone appreciably safer, it is therefore anathema to me to think that the philosophical consequence (don't infringe right to bear arms) and the hypothetical consequence (stop a mass shooting) outweigh the immediate, practical consequence (hurt our ability to hire and retain faculty).

Keep in mind, this issue is purely one of amusement for you, in contrast to me and Alyrium. From our perspective, feeling pretty well protected by campus police and such, encouraging more guns to reside on campus makes us if anything less safe--since it is our job at time to end people's ambitions and derail their life plans. Violent crimes of passion, while still astoundingly rare, are much more common that mass shootings.

In short, to you, increasing the danger to TAs and faculty by some marginal amount and driving away some marginal number of professors are completely irrelevant to your life, such that arguing the philosophical point that the right to bear arms shouldn't be restricted. To us, it's slightly different. If one member of the EEB faculty leaves, it could negatively impact my career (not to mention my department and institution, which I care about). And if increasing the number of guns on campus leads to even one TA getting shot...to you it doesn't matter, but it could be one of us.

Thank you for your frankness. Standing where during what public comment period?

The public comment period on the gun bill. They got swarmed by antis, so much so that Wentworth stopped trying to pass the gun bill legitimately and started adding it to things and trying to ramrod it through when Democrats wanted to go visit Michelle Obama.

In that article, the only dirty tricks I see are Democrats trying to kill their own bill after an attempt to attach the CCW on campus provision to it. I don't necessarily agree with attaching things to unrelated bills, but I have to say that happens so frequently in the legislative process that I see no reason this particular instance is a "dirty trick".

Just because everyone does it makes it ok, right?

What this move says to me is that it demonstrates the fallaciousness of his stand. He asked the people what they wanted and it wasn't what he wanted to hear. So he attaches his provision to unrelated bills to either get CCW on campus passed with a minimum of debate, publicity, and support (1/2 instead of 2/3), or to get the bills (needed for education) spitefully killed. The Democrats don't want this to pass and he knows it. Is it because they are liberal second-amendment-haters? No; this is fucking Texas. It's because their constituents don't like it.

This isn't some bit of pork or a non-binding resolution. It's a symbolic piece of legislation that has attracted massive amounts of attention. It's just plain dishonest to try and cram it in there after the original bill was stillborn thanks to a massive turnout by UT students and staff. I'm not arguing that it isn't legal, or that it's unprecedented, but it is a dirty trick, and represents an "anything to get the bill passed" mentality.

That's sufficient.

Frankly, I don't see much int he way of dirty tricks there - or rather, I see some, but equally on both sides across the 3 links. I don't agree with manipulating vote times, but I also don't agree with pulling your own bill due to an attachment that was approved by the parlimentarian, and by the required majority vote.

Ooh, I like this philosophy. When one side pulls shenanigans, the other side can't push back! That would be wrong! Guess which major political party has traveled far on that attitude.

In any case, making it so the board of regents can't exempt the campus strikes me as rather the point in the first place, and if the board of regents thinks the same way about CCW as I've already addressed, they can't be trusted to make the decision based on good reasoning anyhow.

So certain legislators and their constituents who've never spared a second thought for UT in their lives are better judges of campus safety than the people who run the school? Because if they do not come to the "right" decision, their reasoning is suspect and they cannot be trusted?

Congratulations, you are a self-demonstrating example of why we at UT feel ignored and ridden roughshod over. Your and their attitude, of getting the bill passed at any cost rather than listening to or convincing anyone who works on campus, including the cops, is precisely why we risk the negative consequences that most concern me.

In other words, you're just like Senator Wentworth; you cloak your ideological agenda in faux-concern for UT staff and students. When 150 of those people tell you to your face that they do not agree with you (not to mention calling, texting, etc), and the other legislators start withdrawing their support, than instead of waiting as little as a year to convince us that CCW on campus is right, just get it passed over them. And then never spare a thought for the issue again.

It's funny how in order to change something, you have to make a positive argument (or be an ass like Wentworth). You've demonstrated no net positive of CCW on campus, and you have not answered my net negative--impact on faculty. You've attempted to dismiss that with 1) they can't be serious and 2) even if they are, they are just a bunch of crybabies who are wrong. The point you seem determined to miss is that it does not matter if they are right or wrong. What matters is what they do.

Make no mistake: I proudly weigh the concerns of faculty higher than I weigh the concerns of students who want to have guns on campus. (And I weigh both sets of concerns higher than I do those of ideologues who have no stake in the matter whatsoever.)

The content there doesn't seem to be about what it says it's about.

...what? Are you referring to the fact that I produced that page by performing a search on the student group "Students for Concealed Carry on Campus"? I figured that it would net a pretty good list of the Daily Texan articles on the issue, since they comment on most of these stories.

[TheFeniX]

They're still carrying lethal weapons, needlessly, somewhere where there's no real need to carry a fucking gun.

Needlessly? I'm sure you'll post statistics showing no violent crime on university campuses and refuting the thousands of successful uses of handguns for defense a year. You really think dorm rooms and frat parties are the only places that exist in colleges?

The presence of the weapon itself increases the risk of shit happening. Do they let government employees conceal carry while working in town hall? Are hospital staff allowed to carry guns? Can a doctor have a Smith holstered by his pager, while he's doing surgery? Why? Can they carry guns in the airplane?

Yea, these are totally related examples and not just inane ramblings.

I love the idea of more guns meaning more shots fired. After-all, gun shows have thousands of guns, hundreds of thousands rounds of ammunition, and allow concealed carry in Texas. How about you provide how many shooting deaths happen at gun shows a year. Oh and this is all relevant to the topic for no reason.

What is it with carrying guns that makes gun owners such blubbering cry babies who want to bring their stupid little shit everywhere? It's like those kids who piss themselves at night, and have to carry safety blankets everywhere.

God, we should go send child psychologists to Europe and see how many poor people got traumatized by the horrible fact that they couldn't... couldn't... *sob*... couldn't bring their GUN... to some place!!!! WAAAH! MOMMAH! DEY DIDNA LEMME BRING MAH GUN!!!! WAAAAAAHHH!!!!!

Calling proponents of concealed carry babies while making an argument that would embarrass a 3rd grader: stay classy.

It was just a question, because if they don't allow porn but allow guns, then that would be really fucking stupid. But then again, I'm sure once upon a time, they'd allow people to carry guns in their pockets everywhere, but would outlaw and punish men who liked to have dicks in their asses.

Irrelevant.

So because a gunfight erupted because a psycho asshole wanted to shoot people with his gun, and got shot at by other people with guns... this means more people should have guns? The solution to gun violence is obviously to arm more people. Brilliant.

Remember kids, these violent felons will murder you and everyone you love, but people who try and protect themselves from the vicious killers are pussy crybabies. Once again: classy.

To a large extent, he is. It's not like gun thefts are unheard of.

Because gun thefts are related to CCW?

Dude, he lives on the other side of the world from where all this is happening; to him, the entire population of the United States is "you people."

That's awesome. Here in "Violent redneck-ville" it's considered pretty insulting, which was almost certainly his intent.

This whole thread is really a farce though. Mass-shootings at schools? You people think to big. Take one look at where UH sits in the greater Houston area. Now try and imagine how many rapes and robberies happen in that area. I don't have to imagine because UH spams the shit out of me with alerts on my e-mail. And, due to budget cuts, they have less security on campus. Not just that, forget that the median age of college students has been going up, they're all a bunch of drunk frat boys. Frat boys who gets CHLs, carrying on campus, then shoot people because.... Texas? And this is all backed up with the concrete evidence of "lol pussy crybabies."

More to the point, why should we deny people a legal right simply because other people won't like it?

That's the only reason to deny anyone any right, when you get right down to it. People create rights, too.

Oh Wow..... I assume flag burning and gay marriage should be illegal then. After all: populism.

I direct you to this story Funny, it hurts out that guns enable snap life-ending decisions that might have been reconsidered. No one could have guessed that it takes longer to hang yourself or take pills than shoot yourself in the head!

You mean like how Austrailia banned firearms which cut the gun suicide rate in half..... and the overall suicide rate still went up the next year? You post one link to an officer using his duty weapon to kill himself and you prove that guns cause suicide? Guns make suicide easier, they don't make it easy. He "might" have reconsidered. He also might have decided to drive his car into a building or jam a knife into his neck. We don't know and there's nothing really funny about it. You have more there to form an argument for requiring counseling for peace officers rather than anything against firearms.

Austrailia's hanging suicide rate, ~50% of the total, is on par with America's gun suicide rate. Does that tell you anything about the mentality of people who decide to kill themselves?

[Anguirus]

Oh Wow..... I assume flag burning and gay marriage should be illegal then. After all: populism.

These activities demonstrably cause no harm.

Of course, your analogy is further weakened because we aren't talking about concealed carry, we are talking about concealed carry on campus. I do not support forcing private landowners to allow flag-burning (or any other ceremony) on their land, nor do I support forcing individual churches to marry individuals of the same sex if they do not wish to.

I don't know where people got the idea that the federal government must force all public and private institutions to abide treat the Constitution as if it was their own set of rules. (Or the the feds themselves don't interpret these rules; "speech" may not be escalated into "harassment," and many kinds of "arms" may not be "borne.") You can be fired for publicly bad-mouthing your employer, or for bringing a gun to work. In this case, the University of Texas is a state institution and it is perfectly legal for the legislature to require them to allow concealed weapons on campus. However, I am opposed to this because I find the concerns of the UT police and the faculty to be more relevant than those of concealed-carry advocates.

Naturally I don't think populism always has the right answer, I was just noting that SVPD had made a trivial point (and so have you). Rights don't exist in a vacuum.

You post one link to an officer using his duty weapon to kill himself and you prove that guns cause suicide?

No, I did nothing of the kind. It boggles my mind how anybody could think I was attempting to do this.

Guns make suicide easier

The anecdote does demonstrate this. Which was my first, last, only point I was making with that (so uh...read?).

Take one look at where UH sits in the greater Houston area. Now try and imagine how many rapes and robberies happen in that area. I don't have to imagine because UH spams the shit out of me with alerts on my e-mail.

It may well be the case that CCW makes more sense for UH than for UTAustin. By far, most violent crime occurs off-campus here. Still, I would be curious if your campus police has expressed an opinion on the matter.

[TheFeniX]

These activities demonstrably cause no harm.

Says you. Ask a bigot or some nationalist twit, he'll hem and haw like you about how dangerous they are without posting any actual evidence. I'll pre-face the rest by saying I don't care how scared CHL holders make you and other campus administrators. I look at the facts, and they don't justify your position. EDIT: I forgot. For some background on concealed carry on campus, look at Utah Universities.

Of course, your analogy is further weakened because we aren't talking about concealed carry, we are talking about concealed carry on campus. I do not support forcing private landowners to allow flag-burning (or any other ceremony) on their land, nor do I support forcing individual churches to marry individuals of the same sex if they do not wish to.

My Tax dollars help fund that school: try again.

I don't know where people got the idea that the federal government must force all public and private institutions to abide treat the Constitution as if it was their own set of rules.

Private? Depends. Public: fuck yes. Further, why not let private entities determine how they handle OSHA and EPA violations? Would that be a good idea? But this has nothing to do with the federal government. This is the state enforcing state policy on a state institution. If you decide to take state money, however little shit-head Perry decides to give to you, you follow the state law.

However, I am opposed to this because I find the concerns of the UT police and the faculty to be more relevant than those of concealed-carry advocates.

Texas cops rallied against the adoption of the original Texas CHL plans. Many CCW holders were harassed by law enforcement for a year or two after the law went into effect. Then they realized "Holy shit, these guys aren't a bunch of violent vigilantes." And the statistics backed up their attitude reversal.

How many professors and cops rallied against integration? Isn't that just the federal government forcing the Constitution on campuses? Hell, I remember reading one of the big arguments was that blacks would get violent with white teachers who flunked them because "that's just the way they are." There's about as much evidence backing that theory up as how CHL holders are just violent punks looking for an excuse to open fire.

Short version: Fuck them if they can't back up their paranoia.

The anecdote does demonstrate this. Which was my first, last, only point I was making with that (so uh...read?).

And conveniently ignores my point that removing guns from the equation does not reduce the overall successful suicide rate. It merely reduces gun suicides, so what's the point?

Guns make the act of suicide easier, but they do not strengthen or weaken someone's resolve to take their own life.

It may well be the case that CCW makes more sense for UH than for UTAustin. By far, most violent crime occurs off-campus here. Still, I would be curious if your campus police has expressed an opinion on the matter.

To Hell with them if they do. They'll be wrong. Public institutions shouldn't have the ability to circumvent state or federal law.

And they've pulled this shit before. Be prepared to freak out: You've had concealed handguns on the UT campus since the CHL laws went into effect in Texas. They've been legal to have in the parking lot, just not inside the buildings. But UT campus police threatened to arrest anyone (even admitting it would be illegal to do so) for leaving a gun in their car.

So Fuck em'.

[SVPD]

I'm just straight-up preferring Dr. Cummings' testimony on the matter to your speculation. Apologies.

Where is Dr. Cummings Testimony, and why is his/her testimony any more than speculation?

That's the only reason to deny anyone any right, when you get right down to it. People create rights, too.

So because we deny people certain rights when people don't like those rights based on perfectly good concerns about the effects of allowing them, that's somehow the same as disallowing them based on the unfounded concerns of the ignorant? Interesting.

Movie stereotypes? First off, do you work on a college campus? Cause I do. So does Alyrium.

No, I don't. However, I encounter plenty of college students, I have been one, and I will have a child becoming one in just a few months. Frankly, I don't trust either of your assessments, especially ADs.

Your line sounds an awful lot like if I were to claim my stereotypes of black people were accurate, and I knew better because I worked in an inner city ghetto.

God forbid you stop using loaded language. Why is it more important to cater to the fears of uninformed, ignorant faculty than allow people to exercise a legal right? See? I can use loaded language to make my argument look stronger too!

It's not the first time, either!

So, quit doing it.

That's nice that you think that. Many of UTs programs are quite literally world-class, and it attracts the best and brightest faculty. Hurting our ability to attract and retain faculty really does wound the school.

I haven't yet seen evidence that it actually will, and the hystrionics of the current faculty aren't terribly convincing, any more than I really thought a bunch of Republicans were going to up and move to Canada if Obama got elected.

Apparently you think faculty are largely interchangeable. Now I don't think Dr. Cummings plans to leave, but let's say that she does. Since I think concealed carry will have basically a zero impact on public safety all around (do try to remember that), her leaving would tip the whole thing pretty squarely into the negative column.

Why? She's irreplacable? There aren't other people as good or better than her?

I haven't seen that the University of Texas has anything close to a monopoly on "world class" in academics. Don't get me wrong, it's a good school and now that we live in Texas my daughter might even transfer there; she applied there for the coming year and decided to go elsewhere for this year. I'm not, however, buying that it has any bounty of fantastic faculty that can't be replaced with equally good faculty from elsewhere. UT is far from cornering the market.

It's not only weak, but rather ghoulish to trot out the prospect of a vanishingly rare campus mass shooting to support increasing the number of guns on campus (which is the stated goal of seemingly every campus CCW supporter), and yet it is a staple argument in the debate. (That, and RIGHTS!! which is irrelevant to me because the legality of minor infringements of the right to bear arms is well-established.)

That's really not my problem, since I have not been the one whipping out campus shootings, and in fact have been arguing a net zero balance of safety. However, I don't think it's particularly ghoulish, since these people are misinformed, unlike the anti-CCW crowd who whip out suicide in desperation after their misconceptions about CCW are pointed out to be wrong... by people like me, who are really more or less neutral. I really don't give a shit; I can carry a weapon anywhere on your campus any time I want to whether you, or your police chief like it or not.

I direct you to this story Funny, it hurts out that guns enable snap life-ending decisions that might have been reconsidered. No one could have guessed that it takes longer to hang yourself or take pills than shoot yourself in the head!

Yes, so what? This doesn't establish why a college campus is in need of special protections from this.. nor why its an afterthought from the CCW crowd. People age 65 and over have a higher rate of suicide than college age people. In any case, "guns make suicide easier" is a very weak argument. Why are we arbitrarily drawing a line at how much easier guns make it compared to.. well anything else people use to commit suicide?

They are confusing and frightening, for students carrying as well as students who aren't. Confused, frightened, early twenties gunholders for the win.

You mean like.. young police officers in a shootout? Young soldiers? These people have more training, but they also have more responsibility. Moreover, young early twenties people with guns will be present anywhere else a shooting might occur; there's no reason they should be such a problem on a college campus.

It's also worth pointing out which one of us lives here.

I live in Texas (for the second time, I actually lived here before once), and again, that is not an argument. "I live here, so I get a special veto on public policy that no one else gets on any other matter!" Uh.. no, sorry, we don't live in a dictatorship of the randomly frightened.

Your last sentence is A) your assumption

No it isn't, it's demonstrably true. The minimum amount of harm from a determined, suicidal gunman was realized. Any other shot fired would have been a) neutral or b) had a negative outcome. Moreover, it would have made the police have to be a lot more careful knowing that there are more guns on campus in the hands of jittery students.

Assumption may have been a poor choice of words on my part, but you could not have known in advance, and neither could anyone else, that he was only going to shoot himself. Coming back after the fact and saying "but he only did the minimum harm!" isn't valid, because that could not be known in advance, and can't be known in any future case. In hindsight, CCW holders could not have helped, but that cannot be generalized to any other case, and if one of them or the police had shot this guy you never would have known that.

As for it making the police "have to be a lot more careful", you mean as careful as we are in the rest of society where there are all kinds of jittery people with guns? Quit pretending like college students with guns are some sort of special tactical problem.

and B) begging the question. You do not actually know that.

No it isn't. A gun wielder can't stand down a suicidal man. There was no conceivable way to lower the harm that was done in the real world by adding more guns. All you have to do is think about the situation in order to come to this conclusion. I'm glad you know the names of some logical fallacies though.

It is begging the question, because you are only able to know that about this particular case and only because of hindsight. You cannot apply it to any other case, so unless you are attempting to discuss that case, in a vaccuum, for its own sake, it is a form of begging the question.

Really, are you even listening to yourself? "Guns couldn't have helped in this situation because he only killed himself!" Yes, so? That was that situation; we cannot assume any future one will be similar.

[quote

]"Almost plugged"? Then he wasn't shot? I don't know of anyone else that was shot by a CCW holder at that rally erroneously, so the evidence is that the CCW holder acted appropriately - as you point out he did not actually shoot the guy. PHrasing it as "almost plugged" is an attempt to make it look like a mistake when it wasn't.

What the hell are you talking about? Since concealed guns were not involved in the subduing of Jared Loughner, and by the time the gun holder arrived on the scene he was contained, the only possible counterfactual is him shooting the innocent hero down.

In the guy's own words, "I could have very easily done the wrong thing and hurt a lot more people." I'm glad that we were able to trust his judgment that day, but I'm the cynical type, and for every X number of people who do the right thing, there will be Y number who do the "wrong." I don't believe that the same person in the same circumstance would do the same thing every time.
[/quote]

But he didn't do the wrong thing, and none of what you said changes the fact that "almost plugged" is an attempt to make a correct decision sound incorrect.

In any case, all your X and Y crap is just that - crap. That same circumstance will never occur again. It could very easily have been that the person trying to tackle the shooter was unsuccesful. The CCW holder might have successfully then killed the shooter or not. We don't know. The hypotheticals did not happen, and the situation will never be repeated.

Obviously mistakes will be made. They will be made by the police sometimes; when they are made they are roundly and rightly cricticized. No one is touting people carrying guns as some sort of perfect solution (at least, no one with a lick of sense). The point is that, in this highly unlikely campus shooter situation, that there is a possibility an armed person could slow down or stop a shooting rampage before police could respond. These situations will be so rare that each on is a case unto itself; we cannot really analyze probabilities - except insofar as to say that we know that if no one is allowed to carry guns on campus the probability of an armed person being present when a rampage starts is very near zero, and we are simply assuming that anyone with a CCW would make the situation worse, for no better reason than the fact that some people don't like guns, don't want them around, and are willing to make whatever assumptions they need to in order to make it appear they are some huge boogeyman.

Having a pistol increased the chances of him shooting an innocent man. The course of action he elected to perform--helping to subdue Loughner--did not require his pistol, and he did not employ it at all.

So? Obviously it increases his chance of shooting an innocent man; how would he shoot someone without a gun? He didn't need gun is something we only know in hindsight, and only because it just happened to go that way. No one ever claimed guns were absolutely necessary in every shooting situation. As I pointed out, however, the guy that did the subduing could have easily failed, and been killed, and the shooting continued. The facts in that situation in no way generalize to "a gun in the hands of a civilian can't possibly help in any other given situation."

My lobby? I've said repeatedly I don't particularly care about the issue.

Uh-huh.

Maybe it would help if you didn't insist on demonizing anyone who disagrees with you as a gun nut. It's little wonder you get short shrift when you act this way.

Please demonstrate when I have lied about your position. If this is the case, I did not do so deliberately.

All your comments about me just smelling Second Amendment, and "my lobby" and the like. All of those are a false claim that I'm defending something I'm not. All I'm pointing out here is that your arguments gainst guns on campus are no better than those in favor.

Frankly, you "don't care" about the issue so much that you've decided that despite the fact that you agree with me on all of the facts (CCW will have little/no effect on campus safety, professors' fears are overblown), you've decided that putting more guns on campus is more important than keeping our administration, faculty, and police force satisfied. Perhaps I have mistakenly assumed that you share my utilitarian-leaning ethics. Since we agree that CCW does not make anyone appreciably safer, it is therefore anathema to me to think that the philosophical consequence (don't infringe right to bear arms) and the hypothetical consequence (stop a mass shooting) outweigh the immediate, practical consequence (hurt our ability to hire and retain faculty).

I haven't decided its more important to put guns on campus. I've decided that, UT being a state school, that the wishes of the voters of the state of Texas as represented by their legislators are more important than keeping the professors or the police satisfied, especially since I've seen not one good argument from any of them; especially that police chief who could barely decide what he wanted to talk about.

Frankly, I don't think that the unwarranted fears of the faculty should outweigh the desires of the voters. In fact, if it will hurt the ability to hire and retain faculty, then I would suggest that there will be a net improvement if faculty is willing to leave over its unwarranted fears based on a trivial change in the campus security situation, then its a net improvement since they will be (we can at least hope) replaced by faculty that focuses on their subject area, rather than trying to use their credentials to claim expertise on a subject they clearly know little about.

Keep in mind, this issue is purely one of amusement for you, in contrast to me and Alyrium. From our perspective, feeling pretty well protected by campus police and such, encouraging more guns to reside on campus makes us if anything less safe--since it is our job at time to end people's ambitions and derail their life plans. Violent crimes of passion, while still astoundingly rare, are much more common that mass shootings.

Yes, and my detachment from the issue ought to be giving you great pause rather than causing you to constantly rant about how personally important it is. I'm not making any of this up out of any ideology; even if I wanted to go to a UT campus carrying a gun it doesn't affect me personaly.

In short, to you, increasing the danger to TAs and faculty by some marginal amount and driving away some marginal number of professors are completely irrelevant to your life, such that arguing the philosophical point that the right to bear arms shouldn't be restricted. To us, it's slightly different. If one member of the EEB faculty leaves, it could negatively impact my career (not to mention my department and institution, which I care about). And if increasing the number of guns on campus leads to even one TA getting shot...to you it doesn't matter, but it could be one of us.

Or marginally decreasing the danger.. we do not know which. I'm not arguing that the philisophical right to bear arms shouldn't be restricted - I'm all for restricting it to CCW holders, and reasonable restrictions on who can get them. I just don't see any good reason a college campus as really needing additional restrictions on that right.

Now, maybe if you made an argument like "they shouldn't be allowed in certain types of academic buildings because of the danger of an explosion if there were an accident" I might be inclined to agree. A chemistry lab might not be the best palce for CCW. But no one has made such an argument. I've just seen "But we live here!" and "In this situation a gun didn't help!"

See? I even helped you out there.

The public comment period on the gun bill. They got swarmed by antis, so much so that Wentworth stopped trying to pass the gun bill legitimately and started adding it to things and trying to ramrod it through when Democrats wanted to go visit Michelle Obama.

Which speaks to the vociferousness of the anti lobby, although not its popularity. I have a hard time believing they represent the overall view of the public in Texas, of all places, without additional information.

In that article, the only dirty tricks I see are Democrats trying to kill their own bill after an attempt to attach the CCW on campus provision to it. I don't necessarily agree with attaching things to unrelated bills, but I have to say that happens so frequently in the legislative process that I see no reason this particular instance is a "dirty trick".

Just because everyone does it makes it ok, right?

No, because everyone does it means that this situation is not worthy of special attention. Is there any campaign underway to eliminate this aspect of Texas legislative process?

What this move says to me is that it demonstrates the fallaciousness of his stand. He asked the people what they wanted and it wasn't what he wanted to hear. So he attaches his provision to unrelated bills to either get CCW on campus passed with a minimum of debate, publicity, and support (1/2 instead of 2/3), or to get the bills (needed for education) spitefully killed. The Democrats don't want this to pass and he knows it. Is it because they are liberal second-amendment-haters? No; this is fucking Texas. It's because their constituents don't like it.

He asked "the people"? When and where? There was a statewide poll?

I'm also a little unclear why needing a simple majority is a problem; man parlimentary actions are based on simple majority.

This isn't some bit of pork or a non-binding resolution. It's a symbolic piece of legislation that has attracted massive amounts of attention. It's just plain dishonest to try and cram it in there after the original bill was stillborn thanks to a massive turnout by UT students and staff. I'm not arguing that it isn't legal, or that it's unprecedented, but it is a dirty trick, and represents an "anything to get the bill passed" mentality.

On the contrary, I'd say given its trivial actual impact its significantly less important than a great deal of pork that wastes actual money.

T

hat's sufficient.

Frankly, I don't see much int he way of dirty tricks there - or rather, I see some, but equally on both sides across the 3 links. I don't agree with manipulating vote times, but I also don't agree with pulling your own bill due to an attachment that was approved by the parlimentarian, and by the required majority vote.

Ooh, I like this philosophy. When one side pulls shenanigans, the other side can't push back! That would be wrong! Guess which major political party has traveled far on that attitude.

I said nothing of the sort. Again, I am pointing out that shennanigans are nothing new, and I see no reason this case deserves special castigation just because of the subject matter. I might be convinced to advocate that the practices that allow these games be ended, but not on the basis that they were responsbile for passing CCW on campus. Is that really the crowning achievement of legislative maneuvering in Texas? I somehow doubt it.

So certain legislators and their constituents who've never spared a second thought for UT in their lives are better judges of campus safety than the people who run the school? Because if they do not come to the "right" decision, their reasoning is suspect and they cannot be trusted?

Seeing as it's the University of Texas, I find it very hard to believe that there aren't significant numbers of constituents and even some legislators that have attended it - it's their home state university, is it not? It's not at all hard to find Ohio State alums in Ohio.

As for the reasoning of the faculty, the decision isn't what makes their reasoning suspect, its the reasoning itself. It's horrible, and representative of a faculty that has simply made up its mind guns are bad without understanding the issue at all. It is not at all uncommon to find people or organizations that are singularly unqualified to make decisions about certain aspects of their organization or their life for one reason or another.

Congratulations, you are a self-demonstrating example of why we at UT feel ignored and ridden roughshod over. Your and their attitude, of getting the bill passed at any cost rather than listening to or convincing anyone who works on campus, including the cops, is precisely why we risk the negative consequences that most concern me.

My attitude of getting is passed at any cost? Ok, whatever, since you seem to want to hang onto that canard, I hope it makes you feel better. Quite frankly, I have zero sympathy for UT faculty since so far the arguments attributed to them demonstrate they're no more in the land of reality than their opponents.

In other words, you're just like Senator Wentworth; you cloak your ideological agenda in faux-concern for UT staff and students. When 150 of those people tell you to your face that they do not agree with you (not to mention calling, texting, etc), and the other legislators start withdrawing their support, than instead of waiting as little as a year to convince us that CCW on campus is right, just get it passed over them. And then never spare a thought for the issue again.

Yeah, I'm exactly like the Senator. I doubt very much that any evidence, no matter how powerful, would convince anyone. I ahve found that anti-gun idealogues are just as rabid as those in favor of unlimited carry everywhere.

It's funny how in order to change something, you have to make a positive argument (or be an ass like Wentworth). You've demonstrated no net positive of CCW on campus, and you have not answered my net negative--impact on faculty. You've attempted to dismiss that with 1) they can't be serious and 2) even if they are, they are just a bunch of crybabies who are wrong. The point you seem determined to miss is that it does not matter if they are right or wrong. What matters is what they do.

You also, in a free society, need to make a positive argument to continue a government restriction on people's freedoms in the face of demand to the contrary by the public - and make no mistake, the Senator in question has consituents who elected him ont he basis of his views. CCW in the first place has powerful arguments in favor of it; special restrictions for colleges do not.

Make no mistake: I proudly weigh the concerns of faculty higher than I weigh the concerns of students who want to have guns on campus. (And I weigh both sets of concerns higher than I do those of ideologues who have no stake in the matter whatsoever.)

That's nice. I appreciate your concession that the uninformed objections of faculty are more important to you than the objective realities of the situation.

...what? Are you referring to the fact that I produced that page by performing a search on the student group "Students for Concealed Carry on Campus"? I figured that it would net a pretty good list of the Daily Texan articles on the issue, since they comment on most of these stories.

I'm pointing out that very little, if any, of the content actually appears to be about Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, and most of it appears to be following the legislative maneuvering.

[Alyrium Denryle]

This is not a valid equation.

It is simplified, yes, but not invalid. Yes, I could use a number of variables equal to the number of gun crimes, if I did that, I would have to denote them, I would have to visit exotic non-latin/greek alphabets, so I collapsed them into one. It is perfectly mathematically valid to do this. In any case, the results are the same. I will put this into small words so you can understand:

People who carry illegal guns have a certain probability of using those guns to commit various crimes. People who have legal guns have a certain probability of using those guns to commit various crimes. To get an approximate total for crime involving guns, you add the two together. This is a very simple concept. If you want to further approximate it, you can also add terms in for police officers who commit crimes.

You also seem to not understand how averaging and finding probabilities work. Were I looking at risk for individuals, I would use a number of cases (individuals) and their "commits violent gun crime" vs "not commit violent gun crime" as outcomes, and then analyze the effect of each individual variable on risk, to determine how much a given risk factor plays into the outcome of a given case. This is called LOGIT regression, and I can do this if I have access to a few hundred case studies. .

It is however, not what I was doing. In this case, I am simply dividing the number of crimes committed by two groups by the population size of each group and then adding them together to show that by definition, adding more guns means more crime, which given the lack of effect CCW has, means a net-negative effect of having more guns on campus. I will demonstrate this with a dataset I have taken the last few days to compile here in a moment.

As for police, they commit crimes at a different probability than the other two, and it is obvious for those who do not wish to commit strawmen fallacies that they should be a separate term, and that their net-effect will be positive.

I will put this into small words so you can understand:

People who carry illegal guns have a certain probability of using those guns to commit various crimes. People who have legal guns have a certain probability of using those guns to commit various crimes. To get an approximate total for crime involving guns, you add the two together. This is a very simple concept. If you want to further approximate it, you can also add terms in for police officers who commit crimes.

The point being, you do not want to have an argument about statistics with me. You will lose.

So? It has already been demonstrated that some of this gun crime is utterly trivial (improper carry, improper storage and the like) and the remainder is not all of equal severity; in fact, any crime other than a shooting is essentially irrelevant since the criminal can then be reported and arrested and no one ends up being hurt

And? This does not change the fact that some of that gun crime will be shootings. You are right. trivial gun crime is irrelevant, and a red herring. It is not germain to this discussion, and in my statistical analysis you will see momentarily, I only consider gun deaths.

So what?

Justifying why I use separate terms dumbfuck.

Yes, and? The same situation pertains to everywhere else in society. What makes campuses special?

The problem of HIPPA preventing us from actually ENFORCING the provision of CCW laws which supposedly prevents dangerously mentally ill people from getting CCW permits. Moreover, the concentration of people with undiagnosed mental illnesses is WAY the fuck higher on a college campuses, because they simply have not manifested earlier, and college students often do not know how to access mental health services on campus--limited as they are--and even if they did, do not have the money to pay for the third party therapy or medication they may be referred to.

Do you seriously think that increasing the access of these people to guns is a good idea? Are you mentally ill yourself, or just mind-numbingly stupid?

Most college students are still under their mid 20s and until age 21 they can't even have a permit. Moreover, we let people have access to guns in all sorts of dangerous capacities before their mid 20s; the military, police, security. We let them have access to things much more dangerous than guns. Should we just make 30 the minimum age to be a police officer? I thinkt hat would create a lot of problems.

You also have better screening and mental health care in all of the above. Better training etc.

Oh yes, I suppose that all of those people who are in their Jr. and Sr years, as well as graduate students and people who get discharged at 24 from the military and come back with MORE mental illnesses than they had going in are perfectly safe. Of course! I never would have guessed!

Actually, yes,, criminal record is an excellent indicator of potential for gun related crime. Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. A person old enough to have a CCW permit has at least 3 years of adult behavior behind them, and that is more than enough time to accumulate a criminal record.

Hear that? That was the sound of The Point whisking over your head. For things like armed robbery, yes, past criminal records are good indicators. However we are not talking about those crimes. We are talking about a group of people which has been selected (via financial aid eligibility) to not have criminal records, but who are prone to whole new sorts of emotional and social stress. The sorts of crime you see on college campuses that CCW would negatively effect are those committed by emotionally disturbed persons (for whom past criminal record is not a good indicator, because being emotionally disturbed is by definition transient) and the mentally ill (which do not exhibit symptoms until they are university age).

These are all things I have actually seen. An ex of mine manifested severe bipolar disorder after getting out of the military and loosing his best friend. The only reason his brain did not splatter against the wall is because he kept his guns unloaded, and they were in a secure gun case. I have seen schizophrenia manifest in one of my fellow graduate students, and she did artwork on the walls with her own blood--WHEN MEDICATED. It is REALLY bad when she is not medicated. These are of course just illustrative examples. The data says everything. When you look at crime statistics for university campuses (the FBI collects them, they are easy to access). Violent crimes are amazingly low, murder is almost non-existent. Most assaults happen at bars off campus. Rape is massively under-reported on university campuses, so I dont consider those statistics [on rape only] to be reliable (You cannot have some statistics saying 1 in 4 female college students are the victim of rape and sexual assault, while also having 1 rape on campus. Someone is wrong there...). My point is, there WILL be a marginal increase in gun-related violent crime if you permit legal gun carriers, unless either the number of people with a concealed carry permit is zero, or their probability of using those guns to commit crimes is actually zero. It is a mathematical certainty, you cannot avoid it.

Given this, in order for this to be a good policy, the positive effects must outweigh the negatives. There must be a deterrence effect that outweighs the negative. I have run the statistics myself, there is no effect of concealed carry on crime once other factors are controlled. In fact, the statistically non-significant trend is for CCW to INCREASE aggravated assaults, so if there IS a marginal effect, it is in the opposite direction to the one you need.

(I controlled for poverty, drug use, population density, legal and illegal guns per capita, alcohol use, mental illness and police officers per capita)

Then you need to get better control of your irrational fears. I actually go looking for criminals with guns; I am not intimidated by them. Respectful of their power? Yes, but being "intimidated" is not an effective way of thinking. There's no reason you should be intimidated by responsible citizens with guns either.

And that has absolutely nothing to do with you being trained for it right? I am not worried about the responsible ones. I have students who I would be perfectly comfortable with guns. There are some students I would not be. IE. Last year's little stalking incident.

Have you? What exactly is "batshit"? Get upset? I have news for you; people with guns are still allowed the get angry.

I mean premed students stalking me, and attempting to intimidate me into giving them a better grade. It does not work for them, but I should not have to worry that such a student is armed.

Have you? You do realize if they wanted to shoot you, they could easily have done so anyhow?

Sure. On the other hand, they are NORMALLY law-abiding. Someone who is emotionally disturbed without ready access to a gun, is safer than someone who has to jump through hoops to get them. Put it this way. If on a daily basis they are not carrying a gun, but are suddenly want to obtain one for the purposes of shooting me, or using it to intimidate me directly, they would need to go through a few hoops to get one, because they do not have one pre-existing. They would need to get the ready cash to obtain one, for most students that takes time.

If CCW becomes legal, some of these students will already be carrying a weapon. Do you see how this may be a problem? Guns dont cause crimes, but ready access to them makes the commission of a crime much easier.

Did you report this? Were they charged? I'd be very interested to hear their side of the story, and that of any third parties.

It stopped after the people in question had time to cool the fuck down, and come to terms with the fact that their hopes and dreams were dust. We are not talking creepy pathological stalking. We are talking about transient emotional distress. The two are different things, and the best way to respond is to ignore them and not reinforce the behavior. I was not worried about what said students might do to me, because there was nothing they COULD do but complain to the department chair that I was not giving them undeserved points. That would not go over well. So, I rode it out.

It would be a different story if I could see a shoulder strap under their shirt.

Sounds like a personal problem. I hate to break it to you, but the possibility of a "gun incident" is not out of the question anyhow, and what about getting punched? Stabbed? Your students can carry pocket knives around and that 3" blade can kill your ass. Knife wounds can be hard to treat, and knives don't run out of ammunition. Ever seen photos of cut up prison guards after an altercation? Not pretty.

Non-zero probability+non-zero probability=bigger non-zero probability. Yes, there is always the possibility that someone could attack me. However, with more armed people, that possibility becomes larger. Again, mathematical certainty. It cannot be avoided in this case.