There’s more news on the gun front.
In their infinite wisdom the Texas state legislature and governor have just passed and signed a law making it legal for students to carry guns on college campuses.
A large number of faculty at the University of Texas main campus in Austin have signed a petition demanding the University forbid guns in the classroom, but what do they know?
What could go wrong with students packing heat while participating in the kind of classroom discussion and debate that allows for any and all views to be expressed?
Last year 74% of nearly four hundred law enforcement agencies across the country listed domestic anti-government extremism as the number one terrorist threat our nation faces.
I know it’s purely hypothetical, but what if there are anti-government extremists living in Texas, and some of them should send their sons or daughters to state universities?
And what if, again speaking hypothetically, some of those kids choose to have a gun with them when they arrive on campus.
Just the kind of roommate you would want for your son or daughter, right?
What if a gun toting student happens to be in a political science class discussing current events and a classmate starts talking like a socialist liberal and says something that gun toting student finds personally offensive.
Again, what could possibly go wrong in a situation like that?
Or maybe the fact that he has that gun in the first place means the professor considers the situation potentially too volatile to allow such a discussion take place.
How’s that for an educational environment?
Honestly, I believe the NRA and the Texas politicians in its pocket have gone over the cliff and want to take the rest of us with them.
From their perspective, it’s all about good guys taking out bad guys in a shootout, you know, like the gun fight at the O.K Corral back in the day.
After all, everybody knows that in shootouts only bad guys get killed.
I think I might hate Texas almost as much as I hate the NRA.
linnposts.com 
The one fact that seems always to be missing is that the individuals who commit the mass murders are all mentally ill and totally irrational. Does anyone really believe that the threat of facing armed students will deter these mentally ill from attempting something that will give them MORE attention/notoriety? I suspect(without having any proof), that one of the objectives of the mass murderers is to gather the courage to kill themselves(or be killed). There is no easy answer, but the focus should be on mental illness–not guns.
We can only hope people in power will hear what you say, Kay. Thanks.
I think the focus should be on both mental health issues and gun legislation. Easy access to guns for impulsive, angry people is not a healthy combination.
Kay, it definitely is both/and, not either/or. Thanks for that reminder.
Allowing students, many of whom are emotionally vulnerable and immature (and some of whom are truly mentally ill), to carry guns on campus is insane. The scenarios you describe are scary and entirely possible — indeed, likely.
When in college, my wife’s first roommate was a troubled girl who, among other crazy things, brought a dead cat into their room because she knew Nancy loved cats…..
Had this girl had easy access to a gun, a la what we see today thanks to the NRA, gun manufacturers, illegal sales at shows, and spineless Republican legislators, what might she have done to her roommate and/or others?
The easy availability and proliferation of semi-automatic pistols and long guns to damn-near anyone who has the money IS THE PROBLEM, as our president, our Virginia Governor, our two Virginia Senators and the vast majority of the families and friends of mass gun violence victims acknowledge.
The victims deserve nothing less from us than a concerted effort to stand-up to the gun culture and the NRA legislative puppets and say enough is enough!
Well said, Bill. Thanks for doing so.
We are all aware of the connection between mass shootings and insanity, but the Texas Lege is insanity en masse. Will any of those crazy legislators blame themselves for what is sure to happen? Have they even discussed one unintended consequence, which will be the difficulty Texas state universities will have attracting the finest teachers and researchers in the nation?
This thing of gun violence is getting to be routine (as the President noted a few days ago).And what also is getting disgustingly routine is the inaction of the Congress. I have not heard one peep out of any member of Congress on this issue recently. Maybe it’s there and I just haven’t heard it. Also I have not heard one peep out of the NRA recently,saying such baloney as the solution is more guns.
I am coming to a view that says that guns are the symptom, not the problem. I think the problem is that we have become a violent society that simply shrugs off the now routine acts of gun violence. We have become immune to it. That to me is THE problem, and I think it is a VERY serious one. I think we can pass laws to ease the gun violence problem, but they will NOT solve it. To solve it we must address the underlying societal problem. I wish I had some ideas as to how to do that, but I don’t. Anyone?
Wally,
I think we all share your frustration in trying to “solve the underling societal problem.” My best answer is to attribute most of it to what is called “willful ignorance,” the inability or unwillingness of millions of Americans to educate themselves about realities such as generational poverty and cultural differences and to rise above the racism, xenophobia, and religious fanaticism that does nothing but build walls and fuel hatred among us.
Bill, it says a lot about us as a nation when “willful ignorance” accurately describes a large segment of people.
Getting people to believe we are a violent society is probably the first step, Wally.
The price of stupid: Daniel Hameresh, respected professor of economics is leaving the school because of open carry. UT may lose quality faculty and students who prefer a safer environment.
Steve, it is a total enigma to me why anyone living in Texas would think putting guns into the hands of college kids makes sense.
This is by far the dumbest piece I’ve read. Liberals just don’t get it, and you don’t get it because you proceed from the worldview that all people are inherently good. Bad things will never happen because people are just so darn nice, and if they think like liberals, we’ll all just get along swimmingly. That simply isn’t the truth. So UT loses a professor. Good. One less liberal indoctrinating kids. Now, let’s see … let’s not put guns in the hands of kids. You mean, the same kids that have spent the past 14 years in war — who, at 18, were in a foxhole or on patrol while you were at Starbucks getting your frappacino? The same 18 year old who stands watch for you? Yes, those darn stupid kids can’t be trusted at all! Now, I anticipate your objection … Well, they have training! Yes, and so do CHL holders. People who pursue CHL’s are concerned with doing things LEGALLY, you ninnies. Man, liberals are such sheep and filled with hyperbole. The “rise of racism, xenophobia, and religious fanaticism” is a load of crap. Even though you have nutballs like the Fred Phelps gang, they are carrying weapons or blowing stuff up. The real danger is you guys. You think, as President Obama said, that “keeping the American people safe” is the number one job of government. It isn’t. Protecting the rights of the American people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is. You have a RIGHT to protect your life and to not have to wait for 20 minutes for the cops to show up and do it for you. The funny thing is, if put in this situation, the first thing you’d do is curl up and wait to die. Then, if you’re lucky, the next thing you’ll do is stand up and thank the kid who was carrying the gun (with a legal CHL) for saving your life.
Not to mention that gun deaths in the “wild West” when EVERYONE carried were FAR less per capita then what you have today in Chicago. I get it though. No amount of reasoning will tear down the walls of devotion to liberalism you’ve built. The chances are greater now, more than ever, that there will be a mass shooting somewhere near my children. They cannot carry a gun until they’re 21. The day they do will be the day they’re armed. They’ve been taught sober judgment, patience and the ideas of freedom and responsibility … how to discuss without insisting everyone believes as they do (which runs contrary to liberalism where uniformity is the intellectual currency of the day).
Greg T —
The owner of this blog — the wise, good man who wrote the piece you have savagely (perfect word) attacked — is a better person than I am. The very fact that he has allowed your venomous garbage to appear on his site is indicative of his fairness as a liberal (that’s part of what being “liberal” means).
I will not be so kind. You are a willfully ignorant moron, just waiting it seems to turn loose your children with guns when they reach age 21. So you and they will know, I legally own a 9 mm semi-automatic pistol for home protection, and I will not be “curled-up waiting to die” if someone shows-up at my house armed and looking for a liberal “ninnie” or “sheep” as you labeled us