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.