courtesy KUT

“I am pleased to see this two-year-old law upheld. Once again, opponents of campus carry have failed to provide evidence that campus carry makes college campuses less safe or inhibits the free exchange of ideas. In Texas, vetted, licensed adults have been allowed to take their concealed firearms into places like movie theaters, churches, and public libraries for more than 20 years. It is silly to think that expanding this law to include the buildings of public colleges would somehow violate the U.S. Constitution.” – Students for Concealed Carry’s Quinn Cox in Texas’ campus carry law upheld by appellate court [press release]

45 COMMENTS

    • Your imposition of concealed carry on private properties is as arbitrary and wrong as the antis forbidding it on private property.

      There do exist some people who genuinely believe in natural rights, but they are scant. Far more often you find statists of another flavor whose position on this particular issue just happens to align with what’s right. It’s like a career criminal who calls the cops when his car gets stolen. It’s expedience, not righteousness.

      Such is the case with the 2A proponents who run around demanding fines or imprisonment for private property owners who don’t share your fervor for keeping and bearing arms.

      • Private property is one thing. Places of public accommodation is another. What is so different about the lawful exercise of a right and the practice of “We don’t want your kind here”?

        • “Places of public accommodation” are the state’s way of violating property rights while painting themselves as champions of civil rights. Like it or not, property owners have the right to decide who can come into their places of business and use their services. People are going to do things with their freedom that we don’t like, but as long as they’re not hurting anyone (and refusing service or making someone leave is not harm), it is wrong for anyone to commandeer their property.

        • Salty Bear,

          I was going to mention the concept of causing injury (which could be physical injuries or damage to physical property) — which is the hallmark of a violation of someone’s rights.

          How does a handgun on my hip cause injury to a property owner when I visit their property?

          The obvious answer is that a handgun on my hip causes no injury to a property owner, and therefore does not violate a property owner’s rights.

          How does a property owner’s prohibition of firearms injure guests? Just ask the untold thousands of unarmed people who were robbed, beaten, raped, and/or murdered on “no guns allowed” properties.

        • Salty Bear,

          People are going to do things with their freedom that we don’t like, but as long as they’re not hurting anyone (and refusing service or making someone leave is not harm) …

          Refusing service can definitely cause injury. Consider a sunny 110 degree day in Arizona. My car’s radiator hose fails and my engine overheats. I walk eight miles in the blazing heat to a restaurant and ask to purchase water and use their phone. They refuse service because I am wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap and the next restaurant is 10 miles away. I could quite literally die of heat stroke walking to the next restaurant.

          Refusing service is fine if alternatives WILL serve you at a similar cost (for both the cost of the product/service as well as the cost in time and money to get to the next location). The problem: similar alternatives are frequently not available.

        • “Like it or not, property owners have the right to decide….

          True but we’re talking about public university campuses here. That’s totally different than a church or a movie theater.

      • Jonathan – Houston,

        Such is the case with the 2A proponents who run around demanding fines or imprisonment for private property owners who don’t share your fervor for keeping and bearing arms.

        I do NOT demand that a property owner pay fines or go to prison for having no interest in keeping or bearing arms. Neither should I pay fines or go to prison for keeping and bearing arms.

        My right to life is unalienable no matter who or what claims ownership of the location where I happen to be. Period. Full stop. No exceptions.

        Note: if someone interferes with my ability to effectively defend my life, they have violated my unalienable right to life. Period. Full stop. No exceptions.

        This argument is not about firearms and property rights. Rather, this argument is about human life and property rights. Human life ALWAYS takes precedence over property rights.

        • > Human life ALWAYS takes precedence over property rights.

          Unless, said human is attempting to steal or destroy private property. Then, they are fair game.

          In Texas, Criminal Mischief on private property after dark can be dealt with lethal force.

        • JKATX,

          Unless, said human is attempting to steal or destroy private property. Then, they are fair game.

          I agree entirely! Having life as a human does NOT entitle you to steal or destroy another person’s property.

      • I’m perfectly fine with respecting private property rights as long as you’re perfectly fine imposing responsibility on a private property owner for the physical security of people on his property. #compromise #commonsense

        • Agree. If you prevent me from protecting myself, and you don’t provide protection for myself and my family, you should be prepared for a multi-million dollar lawsuit if somebody hurts or kills us while at your establishment. You have taken on the responsibility as soon as you decided to start policing your establishment. Similarly, any website that starts censoring users for a certain behavior/speech had taken on that responsiblity for all users and are partially responsible for damages for the ones they miss. If a website isn’t monitoring the users’ content, they aren’t responsible for the users’ illegalities. Once they try to block pirated content unilaterally, they are responsible for the pirated content that they allowed to remain.

      • I’m a staunch supporter of the 2nd Amendment and I have absolutely no problem with the owners of truly private property banning guns on their property if they wish. The issue does become a bit more complicated for “places of public accommodation” and even more so for property belonging to quasi-government “private” businesses (such as utilities).

        If a business CANNOT LEGALLY refuse service to someone under some supposed ‘civil right’ then that business ought not be able to refuse service to a person who chooses to exercise a clearly stated right.

        But I’m willing to accommodate the hoplophobic business owners — if you want to deny my right to effective self-defense while on your property, then you should provide secure storage for my firearm while I am on the property .and. you should accept absolute liability if I am injured in any way where I might reasonably have been able to defend myself if not for your interference with my right.

        • My feelings are simple. Whatever the owner wishes makes no difference to me. I will carry where ever I go. If some how they find out and ask me to leave, I’ll do so. I’m violating no laws. Here in Utah, CCW permit holders are authorized to carry on school Campuses, as it should be. Can’t recall a mass school shooting in Utah during the 13 years I’ve been here.

    • Texas acknowledges private property rights via the 30.06 and 07 parts of their law. I would prefer the approach other places use which is to leave it to individual locations to determine if an individual is unacceptable for some reason and demand they leave, with simple trespass being the only available remedy.

      • No, those laws legalize discrimination. They are just another form of “We don’t want YOUR kind here”.

      • Utah is that way. There is no criminal penalty for carrying a firearm anyplace open to the public (with the usual exceptions for Federal property), even if they post a sign. But a business owner can ask you to leave and failure to comply at that point, you’re trespassing.

        Suits me, because I believe that all transactions should be voluntary and mutually consensual.

        • Exactly. Even though the business posts a sign, you are not violating any laws until they ask you to leave, and you refuse. I don’t go anywhere with being CCW. The point being, I conceal carry and they never know I’m armed. Costco is a primary example. I’d love to boycott them, but for me it is a necessary evil. What they don’t know won’t hurt them. I’ve never seen a “no weapons” sign there, but have been told by their employees that they don’t allow guns to be carried in their stores.

        • Kentucky has the same laws, you can post as many signs as you want but its not illegal for a law abiding citizen to carry onto property that states its not allowed. All they can do is ask you to leave and then you can be arrested for trespassing if you refuse.

    • Yeah no freakin’ kidding, right? I find it rather hilarious that these leftist swine that claim that campus carry makes university unsafe never seem to have a single thing to say about the ANTIFA problem; which ultimately makes exercising the 1st Amendment unsafe.

      And that’s before we even talk about how many far left Marxist professors themselves promote ‘revolutionary action’ in their class. Read ‘bash anyway with a dissenting opinion’.

  1. But the Constitution is a living document that means whatever we feelz it should…

    • The Constitution will be replaced if the shitlibs have their way. Everyone gets a vote, regardless of if they are a citizen!!!

      Thats why they all most go back.

      • Why bother replacing it when you can simply interpret it to mean anything you want or just ignore it altogether?

    • Yes, if you happen to be a conservative on campus, the “free exchange of ideas” has been dead for a long time.

      • I graduated college in 2007. I was always one of the few outspoken conservatives in a given class. I occasionally had other students try to shout me down (never worse than when I said Shakespeare was overrated, but that’s another story) but never professors. They would attempt to refute my points, and I had one Muslim professor be openly dismissive and disrespectful, but none tried to actually silence me or gave me bad grades. 11 years later, I would have been expelled my freshman year.

  2. “Concealed Carry on College Campuses Doesn’t Violate the Constitution”

    Correct,only gun free zones violate the Constitution.

  3. Maturing in experience, wisdom, and one’s faculties of reason necessarily means that at some point you’ll come into conflict with deeply admired figures. It happens with your older siblings, your parents, teachers, professors, police officers, national leaders, and even historical figures.

    Eventually, you start doing your own thinking and come to realize that these are all just human beings. They’re as erring, imperfect, and gullible, even against their own biases and ignorance, as just about anyone else. There is a natural dethroning process, or at least removal of the pedestal, after which you reimagine former idols as fallible humans. You discard the outsized adoration and replace it with a rightsized respect.

    At least that’s the way it should work. With these UT professors, however, it is more like a straight to the ground plummet from former heights of reverence. These petty emperors’ moral cowardice and intellectual nakedness have been revealed. These fools have beclowned and benighted themselves beyond redemption.

    In the eyes of the thinking, evaluating, and maturing young undergraduate student, these professors should now seem like and be rejected as little more than elementary school brats who got a 100% on a spelling test or two and maybe perfect attendance for the year, and who now feel entitled to dictate what everyone else must have for lunch, may play at recess, and beside whom to sit on the bus.

  4. To argue that the constitution – whether that of Texas or of the United States – which explicitly protects the right to keep and bear arms, somehow imposes on the government a duty to disarm the People, is shocking in its audacious stupidity. I call this the “black is white and crosswalks are bullshit” school of pseudo-intellectualism.

  5. Unless you can control campus ingress, with searches of everybody entering, concealed carry bans on college campuses have no chance of accomplishing what their proponents claim. I have been on something like 50 college campuses over the years and with the exception of the service academies they are like small cities with numerous places where people can enter without being checked.

    In addition the fears of class arguments turning into gun battles are totally unrealistic. I have witnessed a number of contentious arguments in classes over a long academic career but I have NEVER seen them turn violent!

    • Excellent points. Also every time I see that “people carrying guns will snap and shoot someone” argument, it makes me certain that the person making that argument is the unstable one who would do such a thing and it’s just projecting.

  6. In Texas, vetted, licensed adults have been allowed to

    The word “allowed” used in conjunction with a right is non-sequitur.

    In Texas, vetted, licensed adults have been allowed to speak their minds.
    In Texas, vetted, licensed adults have been allowed to redress their Government.
    In Texas, vetted, licensed adults have been allowed to go to church.
    In Texas, vetted, licensed adults have been allowed to be secure in their person, place, and things.

    • In Texas, we are not “allowed” to exercise a right. The state government does not “allow” us, it gets the hell out of the way and does not OPPRESS us and keep us from exercising a right.
      Anything the government can give or allow, they can also take away.

  7. If a “private” school ACCEPTS FEDERAL OR STATE MONEY, it is a public place that accommodates the public – including American Taxpayers, who monies they so graciously accept (we thank you). They should NEVER be allowed, under any circumstances, including “feeeeeellllliiiinnnngggsss” to oppress an individual by attempting to limit their constitutional rights, codified into law.

    There are, I believe three accredited colleges in the US that do NOT take federal money for any reason, even student loans. One of my daughters graduated from one of them. Those are private property, and should be respected as such.

    Please. Convince me otherwise.

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