It’s been a great week full of remarkable progress for the issue of concealed handguns on college campuses for license holders.
A fantastic op-ed from Scott Lewis of the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus in the Washington Times makes known the importance of the issue:
On the morning of Aug. 1, 1966, few people had ever considered the possibility that they might die in an indiscriminate shooting spree. But shortly before noon on that fateful day, a 25-year-old former Marine climbed to the top of the University of Texas bell tower and created a worldwide reference point for such fears.
As police rushed to the scene, officers already on the UT campus struggled to formulate a plan. At that time, the Austin Police Department had no SWAT team. Officers were armed only with service revolvers and shotguns, both useless against a sniper firing from a fortified position high above the ground.
Seeing that something had to be done, students quickly retrieved hunting rifles from dorm rooms and fraternity houses, took up defensive positions throughout the campus and returned fire. In the August 2006 edition of Texas Monthly magazine, Bill Helmer, a graduate student at UT during the shooting, recalled the experience to journalist Pamela Colloff: He said he remembered thinking, “All we need is a bunch of idiots running around with rifles.” But what they did turned out to be brilliant. Once the shooter could no longer lean over the edge and fire, he was much more limited in what he could do. That’s why he did most of his damage in the first 20 minutes.
I’ve done a few radio shows this week about the topic and my YCT chapter has participated in the empty holster protest of the national group.
We’re looking forward to working to change the policies at UTSA to allow CHL holding students to carry their handguns on campus.
