I think legal concealed carry on campus is a great idea. There really is something very unsettling to me about creating a gun-free zone, and then failing to protect it with police, and the campus killings indicate there is a problem along these lines. At least airports have lots of police after the metal detectors. It was extremely poignant and touching for me to read about the elderly Va Tech professor, an Auschwitz survivor, who had survived the horrors of anti-Semitism and Facism, who then died while holding the door shut and ordering his engineering students out the window!

Can we not honor him by saving "never again" at least allowing those who have proven themselves worthy to state authorities to continue to discreet carry sidearms onto campus?

Good point about the public vs. private universities, though. The private property rights trump concealed carry. If that were not the case, then there would be a legal precedent for forcing private property owners to allow concealed carry against their wishes, which would be a MOST dangerous precedent.

Also, I am not in favor of guns in dorms. That just sounds like trouble to me. If you're a student, over 21, have a CHL, and want to have a gun around and on your person... get an apartment.

I am in favor of a limited sort of open carry, which would be granted only to the CHL licensees, not just any random person who wanted to stride out into the world wearing a sidearm. That sounds very stupid. At which point I suppose we would have to rename to Texas Concealed Handgun License to the Texas Handgun Carry License (concealed or open).

BTW, I was looking at the CHL programs of other states, WA state in particular, because I might move there if I get kicked out of the oil patch, and the TX program is much tougher, and much more expensive. I have a lot of confidence the pool of CHL licensees is an exceedingly safe cohort, compared to the general populace.

What I find offensive about all of this is the perception that what happened at Virginia Tech had to do with gun control. That someone shouldn't have been able to buy a gun. That someone else should have been able to carry a gun on campus. That either would have prevented the tragedy.

It had nothing to do with gun control. It had to do with the public attitude about stalking. That young man had been charged with stalking two female students at Virginia Tech and was supposed to be in counseling according to the court. The university just assumed he was. And just assumed the situation was not something they needed to be concerned with anyway. After all, as the public relations director of Sam Houston State University put it after a student there was gunned down in her dorm by someone who had been stalking her, stalking is just some sort of "obsessive-type thing."

It is much more. And was what should have been focused on after Virginia Tech. Not gun control. Or the right to carry guns on our campuses.

As for the argument that allowing students to carry guns, openly or not, will make our campuses safe the same argument could be made about our elementary schools. Let's not forget Columbine.

I doubt the bill will pass but if it does no doubt everyone will learn why it was a bad idea when a drunk student shoots someone for no real reason other than they "thought" they were "up to something."

The student at Sam Houston State University might have been saved by a metal detector and an entry system.

But of course the bubbas can't carry metal detectors and entry systems on their hips and become the "big men on campus."

And they're the ones pushing it. The ones most likely to get drunk and shoot someone for no real reason other than they "thought" they were up to something."

Baby Snooks... how about allowing faculty and staff who have CHLs to carry on campus? Let's forget about the Big Men on Campus for a moment... how about the tweedy men and women on campus?