Students for Concealed Carry on Campus press release:
A Feb. 18 Houston Chronicle article detailing the rapid decline in anti-campus carry fear and activism at Texas universities notes that a handful of graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin still choose to hold class office hours in bars, where the licensed carry of handguns is statutorily prohibited.
This raises the question of why PhD candidates tasked with instructing and enlightening students are coping with their own unreasonable fear of violent crime by holding office hours in a location where they and their students are more likely to be the victims of violent crime.
According to a 2004 study, almost one-third of severe violence against men ages 18-30 and almost one-quarter of severe violence against women ages 18-30 occurs in or around bars.
For a graduate student to be so afraid of the small number of vetted, licensed adults lawfully carrying handguns on campus that he or she decides to hold office hours in a bar is like a tourist being so afraid of the sharks in the Sea World aquarium that he decides to move his vacation to the Great Barrier Reef.
According to data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas license to carry holders are convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon at one-ninth the rate of unlicensed adults.
Statistically, an instructor at a Texas university would be the victim of hundreds of armed assaults by unlicensed students before being the victim of a single armed assault by a licensed student.
Brian Bensimon, Southwest regional director for Students for Concealed Carry, commented, “If graduate students want to pretend that campus carry is the reason they’re spending all day in a bar, that’s their prerogative, but let’s at least acknowledge that they’re actually putting themselves in more danger, not less.”
About Students for Concealed Carry:
Students for Concealed Carry (SCC) is a national, non-partisan, grassroots organization comprising college students, faculty, staff, and concerned citizens who believe that holders of state-issued concealed handgun licenses should be allowed the same measure of personal protection on college campuses that current laws afford them virtually everywhere else. SCC is not affiliated with the NRA or any other organization. For more information on the debate over campus carry in Texas, visit WhyCampusCarry.com.
ya see, that’s why I avoid Texas. Such a backwards place.
You have to be kidding. It’s UT Austin, the Berkeley of Texas.
PS, I used to go to annual machine gun shoots in Comfort, Texas where people brought everything from Uzis to Berretta BM 59s and even a Browning M2 HB.
At work I’m surrounded by guys who own thousands of dollars worth of guns and a hell of a lot of them are ARs.
I’ve always found this funny:
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/beararms/statecon.htm
Connecticut: Every citizen has a right to bear arms in defense of himself and the state (can’t buy guns or ammo without paying/applying/waiting 6 months for a permit)
Texas: Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the State; but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.
I would avoid any classes taught by someone that stupid. I am not going to learn anything useful from them.
Oh the class he teaches “Rhetoric of US Exceptionalism” yep sounds like an uber liberal useless class.
Sounds like half the coffee house shouted conversations I’ve been subjected to while waiting for my adult milk shake.
The problem with lefties is their inability to differentiate valid science and statistics from the “feel good” pseudoscience that they use in their own press releases so that they tend to fall for their own lies. I am a bit surprised that the school allows them to use a bar for official school activities since that would tend to open up the university to some potentially nasty liability issues.
Jokes on them anyways people carry in bars legal or not judged by 12 or carried by six and all that.
Ha, like thousands of other Texans I used to carry illegally EVERYWHERE before CCW was passed. I once walked in into a Fort Worth courtroom and stood with a friend while I had a loaded Glock 45 in a shoulder holster with two spare mags under my jacket. I had friendly face to face conversations with cops while I had a Ruger GP 100 stuffed in the front of my shorts, etc.
In retrospect I can’t believe I did that shit since the penalty would have been pretty damn harsh…but it was in pre metal detector days and I never acted weird.
Hope they are brushing up on their Koran quotes and learning how to fool the guys who ask their victims these types of questions.
Obligatory rap battle:
That was good
This is paid for by my taxes. All joking aside- No one should support any class being held in a bar. In a world where alcohol has stopped being served at lots of company Christmas parties- I cannot believe this is going on at a bar.
What a bunch of losers.
It’s called paranoia and transference. Which together can be a sign of a mental disorder. They fear others with a firearm because they fear themselves with a firearm. These people should seek help from a trained professional.
‘…in bars, where the licensed carry of handguns is statutorily prohibited.’
One more reason why Iowa is a much better state to carry a gun in than Texas. I think that’s #12.
This behavior is direct evidence of the extreme dickishness of these particular grad students, who must feel their dickishness towards the students forced to deal with them is sufficient cause for their otherwise irrational fear of their fellow students.
As someone who has gone fishing on the Great Barrier Reef a few times I can assure you there are plenty of sharks. We used to encourage the annoying tourists to go swimming.
I have run security in various bars and in some only one fight a night was considered quiet. I couldn’t imagine paying fees to have meetings in a bar.
Perhaps the gun free zone bar supports strap on dildos in public. That seems to be the way of the libertarians who said at UT Austin last year they used “reason” to defeat the use of guns.
You mean liberals.
Libertarians are for gun rights. Where did you get your misinfomration from?
Libertarians will give up your guns so they can smoke marijuana free from arrest. Libertarians have always supported pot legalization politicians. The problems is those same pro pot politicians have all been anti second amendment.
http://www.businessinsider.com/marijuana-states-legalized-weed-2016-11
“California, Nevada, Maine, and Massachusetts all voted in favor of legalized”
I should add Colorado and Washington State. Now tell me what is the situation regarding gun civil rights in these states????
They don’t even rise to snowflake level…more akin to the slaughtered Pulse Nightclub sissies.
Now that I have the time to do something other than post a hilarious video on the topic…
The reasoning behind this is silly but fundamentally I don’t have a problem with upper level classes being held in a bar. I had a couple classes my junior and senior years that were held in bars on a regular basis. The classes were higher level classes so everyone was 21 (the Profs asked about this before moving the class to a bar) and everyone agreed to meet there. It wasn’t a “Hey this class is being held at the bar” type of thing. The people in the class voted unanimously to hold the class at the bar.
The main reason was because those classes were held during what most people consider to be lunch time and the building the class was in had a strict policy against food. It also didn’t hurt that the local watering hole had the best pizza in town and was actually closer to where most students lived that the building the class was officially scheduled in. This bar also had a damn fine selection of sandwiches, subs and other food which was all top notch. Some of it was “bar food” and some of it was not.
You want to see a bunch of pissed off people? Take their lunch time and replace it with a mandatory 90 minute class on state, local and federal tax policy and attach a 30 minute “lab” on previous legal cases on the subject while banning them from bringing anything to eat into the building and you will have hungry people who aren’t paying attention and are positively murderous.
Nothing makes such a class more bearable than having good food and a pint of a bitter IPA to help you deal with it.
How nice. Your class voted? No peer pressure there to do the cool thing and conduct class in a bar….
Even upper level classes, meaning junior and senior level, do not guarantee students are 21 and over. The typical, traditional student does not turn 21 until some time in their senior year. So an off campus bar is out of the question for most students.
Second, this is a graduate student assistant. He isn’t teaching upper division classes, anyway. Like all assistants, he’s teaching undergraduate intro courses and blow off electives.
Third, this story isn’t even about conducting class in a bar. It’s about holding office hours in a bar. That’s different. Personal matters are discussed with professors during office hours. Like what’s going on in a student’s life that is impeding their class performance. Like discussion of their grades or post graduation plans. There’s even just further assistance with understanding current lessons.
None of that is aided by a noisy (live bands play at this UT bar during part of this guy’s office hours) and non-private office venue. This jack wagon is cheating his students out of the services we taxpayers have hired him to perform. (Ph.d. level assistants typically receive a stipend and tuition remission.) He’s a petulant brat making an asinine and irrelevant political statement on while on the clock. In the private sector, his rear would get canned.
That’s the thing about Irrational Fears, they are um..well, IRRATIONAL.
I think I’m gonna catch some heat for this one but I’m honestly disappointed with some of the comments here. I don’t really try to wax political but some of these are the exact reason people on the left hate the POTG. It comes off as ignorant and bigoted when you frame a tragedy like the pulse shooting as “slaughtered sissies.” We need to try and reach out to these people and try to welcome them into the fold. Not alienate them with words like sissy and snowflake. Come on RF
Amazingly, I have LEGALLY carried in many Texas establishments that many might consider “bars” including many in Austin. No visible 51% sign; not a bar. So get real comfortable snowflake and get me another Oskar Blues G’Knight while you’re up.
College Student + Bar + Food + Women/Men + Political Activisim…….Doesn’t get any better that that.
Funny that people with an irrational fear of violent crime (those that concealed carry a firearm) are complaining about others with an irrational fear of violent crime (those that are afraid of those that concealed carry).