Texas Allows Students to Defend Themselves

The Guardian.uk reported a story on Texas’ allowing students to defend themselves from thugs, rapists and psychos like the one that killed 32 students at Virginia Tech. Imagine if just one of those students had a self-defense weapon.

University administrators strongly opposed the measure that the Texas State House passed. It is likely that they fought against it not out of concern for the safety of their students, but instead to defend the liberal stance that no one needs weapons – except criminals – an important voting block of the democratic party.

In an ironic turn, the Republican Senate is expected to pass the measure as part of the funding bill for colleges and universities. Once it passes, holders of concealed handgun licences will be allowed to carry weapons into public building on college campuses and  in the rest of the state of Texas.

According to the Guadrian.uk article, “The senate’s 12 Democrats had mostly worked together to block the measure but were powerless to stop it on Monday when a majority in the 31-member chamber got it added to the spending bill as an amendment.”

Although supporters rightly point out that this is a self-defense and guns rights issue, elitists such as the UT System chancellor, Francisco Cigarroa, wrote to politicians and Governor Rick Perry voicing concerns that the measure will lead to more campus crime and suicides – a blatant attempt to continue using scare tactics that are entirely based in mis-truths.

If someone is going to commit a crime or contemplate suicide, a gun is not the enabler. Someone considering committing a crime among a population of possibly armed victims – will consider finding some lesser-defended targets. That’s the beauty of defending oneself combined with concealed carry – the criminals have no idea who might just pull out a gun and end their illustrious career.

If you grew up in Texas, as I did, guns aren’t scary. We’ve known for a good long time that the only hands that gun laws keep guns out of .. are victims. Criminals will go wherever and do whatever to get them or will use other methods. Gun control is just that – yet another control mechanism.

To accentuation the validity of the arguments being made against gun ownership, the Guadian.uk had this nugget of wisdom to share:

Concealed handgun licence holders in Texas are allowed to skip metal detectors in the state capitol. Perry made headlines for shooting a coyote on a morning jog last year.

I didn’t even have to edit that together. Those two sentences were butt-to-butt in the same paragraph. Is going through a metal detector with a concealed handgun getting coyote’s killed or enabling Perry in some way?  Who knows?

Texas’ Governor Perry has said he supports the campus guns measure and is expected to sign it into law if it reaches his desk.