Big (gun)man on campus

Did you ever wish you could pack heat on a college campus? Maybe someday soon, you’ll be able to.

Michael Guzman, a 25-year-old Texas State University senior and Marine veteran, takes his Kimber Ultra Carry II handgun just about everywhere he goes. Except to school.

Texas lawmakers, how­ever, are crafting ways to allow licensed handgun owners to tote their guns more easily. One proposal would let guns be carried on campuses, and another would allow licensed handgun owners to openly brandish their guns in public.

Together, the two issues are likely to be the most contentious gun-related laws of the session.

State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, is preparing the campus concealed-carry gun measure. He calls it a “safety protection bill” for students and faculty.

“I don’t want to wake up one morning and hear on the news that some madman went on a Texas campus and picked off Texas students like sitting ducks,” Wentworth said. “I’m doing what I can to prevent that from happening in Texas.”

Yes, we wouldn’t want to discourage anyone’s John McClane fantasies. Jokes aside, I don’t as yet see any bill authored by Sen. Wentworth that addresses this, so I can’t really say much more than that, but I do have a question: Is this only intended for public universities, or for all of them, public and private? I can see the justification for the former, but if it’s the latter, should the state be imposing on them like this? Private universities restrict a number of otherwise-legal things their students can do – I don’t see why this shouldn’t be one of them. There may be constitutional issues as well – what if there’s a religious school that bans guns because it considers them to be sinful? Like I said, I don’t see a bill yet, but that will be something to look for.

As for the other issue:

At present, people with handgun permits have to keep their weapons concealed.

Ian McCarthy, a 22-year-old online marketing entrepreneur in Austin, wants to be able to brandish one openly.

“Criminals want an easy target. When they see you can fight back, they’re going to go somewhere else,” McCarthy said.

He is a member of the national pro-gun group OpenCarry.org, which has raised more than $10,000 online to buy radio and billboard ads across the state and has collected more than 53,000 online Texas signatures in favor of changing the law.

I’ve already said that I’m supportive of this effort, but I still can’t read about it without thinking of something Molly Ivins wrote way back when the concealed-carry law was being debated. She suggested that everyone who was carrying be required to wear a propeller beanie so the rest of us would know who we’re dealing with. You could say this would have the same effect.

On a side note, I see that the two groups mentioned in this story are working at cross-purposes. That ought to add an interesting angle to the debates.

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