I find Texas to be an interesting state when it comes to gun laws. On one hand the people of that state are pretty pro-gun but on the other hand they have some strange restrictions in their carry laws. Of these restrictions I find the prohibition against carrying on college campuses to be truly idiotic. Thankfully the Texas legislature seems to be well on their way to fixing it and the National Rifle Association (NRA) is asking Texans to call their state senators and urge them to pass the bill.
Obviously people in opposition to this bill will call these same senators and make claims on “blood in the streets” and claim firearms are too dangerous to have near “irresponsible college students.” Yes the anti-gunners main arguments have been the fact that colleges are a place for debate and any debate involving a person with a firearm will absolutely turn into a shooting war. As a libertarian who has many debates with socialists while I’m carrying a gun I would like to point out how fallacious this argument is.
The other point anti-gunners try to make is college campuses are sources of heavy binge drinking and having firearms near such an environment means shooting wars will develop. What the anti-gunners don’t realize is once somebody has a carry permit a firearm doesn’t magically manifest itself on the permit holder’s hip. Those of us who carry can take the gun off when we decide to do something that doesn’t mix well with weaponry. I know this because I have removed my firearm when I’ve gone to parties and gotten shit faced drunk.
I’m also going to point out the fact that Minnesota allows the carrying of firearms on college campuses (colleges can make restrictions against students and faculty carrying on their campus but no law exists preventing it thus anybody not involved with a college can carry on the campus without any worry or expulsion or being fired). Do you know how many shootings we’ve had on college campuses due to allowing people to legally carry firearms there? Zero. For you anti-gunners who don’t know how to count that means we’ve never had an incident.
This is usually when are anti-gunner will claim that it’s only a matter of time. Truth be told it’s only a matter of time before most scenarios eventually unfold. What I can tell you though is prohibition of having firearms on college campuses hasn’t prevented shootings on said campuses. All these prohibitions have done is effectively disarmed both the student body and faculty meaning any asshole with malicious intent can have his pick of defenseless victims. Although I realize no matter what I say or what evidence I prevent to those who are against removing prohibitions against people arming themselves the anti-gunner’s won’t change their rhetoric. Anti-gunners are irrationally scared of firearms and like all irrational fears this fear has lead them to hold irrational beliefs.