A federal judge has dismissed a longshot lawsuit filed by three University of Texas at Austin professors seeking to overturn the state’s 2015 campus carry law, which allows people to carry concealed handguns inside most public university buildings.
District Judge Lee Yeakel wrote in his decision that the professors — Jennifer Lynn Glass, Lisa Moore and Mia Carter — couldn’t present any “concrete evidence to substantiate their fears” that campus carry would have a chilling effect on free speech.
The professors claimed that the law violated their First Amendment rights, since the possibility of a gun being in their classrooms might make them hesitant to discuss controversial issues. In dismissing the suit, Yeakel said the professors didn’t have standing to sue.
The ruling was issued late Thursday, exactly one year after the original lawsuit was filed.
See here, here, and here for the background. I was skeptical of this when it was filed – you would think that if the “well-regulated militia” argument were going to work, someone would have used it successfully by now – so this is what I expected. I don’t care for campus carry and would like to see it thrown out, but that’s going to take a political solution. We will need to have a government that is very different from the one we have now for that to happen.
How many deaths and injuries have resulted from campus carry so far? None about right? Yeah.