Stephenville Empire-Tribune HB1893 Article

[KD5NRH]

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Guns at school?
Proposed gun legislation would allow students to carry weapons in class
By WHITNEY WHITE-ASHLEY
Staff Writer
Whitney.ashley@empiretribune.com
Published: Sunday, March 22, 2009 3:06 PM CDT

In Erath County, headache racks are just part of the decor; but a piece of legislation making its way through the Texas House of Representatives could allow anyone with a concealed handgun license (CHL) to carry their sidearm onto campuses of higher education - such as Tarleton State University.

Texas House Bill 1893 was filed by District 113 Representative Joe Driver (R) on Feb. 26. Representative Sid Miller (R-Stephenville) is one of the co-authors.

“I’m in favor of anybody who goes through CHL (training) to be able to carry guns on public property,” Miller said. He said the bill was inspired in part by the tragic events at Virginia Tech University and Northern Illinois University. He is hoping that would-be shooters might be deterred if they knew classmates might shoot back.

Tarleton junior, Cassandra Small, is not sure she is comfortable with the bill.

“The more people carrying (guns) the more likelihood there is for an incident,” Small said.

Small, who lives on campus, admits, however, that she has not spent much time around guns and can understand that people would want to protect themselves.

“I have never been in a situation where there were a lot of guns around,” Small said. “I would not feel comfortable knowing that someone next to me in class had one.”

Her friend, James Crawford, 23, does not agree. He has had a CHL for more than a year.

“People that have a CHL know how to treat a weapon,” Crawford said. “Most people that have them are smart about using them.”

Crawford said he thought that would-be shooters might think twice before entering a classroom if the legislation passes.

“You never know when someone is going to walk into your school nowadays,” Crawford said. “People are going to feel safer. You’re going to be able to protect yourself and maybe keep them from killing someone.”

HB 1893 states that a license holder may carry a concealed handgun on the campus of any institution of higher education, public or private, in Texas. Universities are prohibited from creating their own campus rules barring guns on campus.

If the bill passes, the new law would go into effect Sept. 1.

Tarleton President Dr. F. Dominic Dottavio and Tarleton Police Chief Justin Williams were both contacted for comment. However, as state employees, they are not able, by law, to comment on pending legislation.

HB 1893 was referred to the Committee of Public Safety on March 5.

District 25 Texas Senator Jeff Wentworth (R) filed companion bill SB 1164 on Feb. 26. It was referred to the State Affairs Committee on March 13.

[Liberty]

I noticed that folks tend to credit the training for level of safety found in CHL holders, but they don't mention the investigation and clean records required of CHL holders. Dan Patrick was using the same arguements to explain why CHL holders will not be a problem in the work place. Although training is an effective arguement, The cold hard numbers on just how few of us get involved into trouble is what I believe the best arguement. We don't get into trouble because statistically we didn't get into trouble before we got CHLs. Oh yeah and we took a class that explained how to continue to stay out of trouble.

[KD5NRH]

My response to a couple of the "wait for the police" antis in the comments; this might be a useful list in other situations as well:

kd5nrh wrote on Mar 25, 2009 11:04 AM:
" Winnetka IL, 1988: one dead, five wounded in a school shooting, police arrived after the shooter fled.
Stockton CA, 1989: five students dead, 30 wounded in a school shooting, shooter committed suicide four minutes into the attack, before police arrived.
Tucson AZ, 2002; three college professors killed on campus in at least two separate locations, shooter committed suicide before police arrived.
At Columbine, at least nine people had already been wounded or killed before the first law enforcement officer arrived on the scene.
At Jonesboro Arkansas, all five deaths and 11 injuries occurred before police arrived.
At Virginia Tech, police were unable to enter the building in time to have any effect on the shooting.
I have several more, but this pretty well summarizes that a shooter can do too much damage in too short of a time to wait for police to arrive. I would, however, like to add one more to the list:
Grundy VA, 2002: three dead, three injured before two armed students succeeded in subduing the shooter. "

[ninemm]

I really didn't get the "headache rack" comment in the opening sentence of the article. Did the author (is Whitney a female?) mean "gun rack". This is a "headache rack":

[KD5NRH]

I really didn't get the "headache rack" comment in the opening sentence of the article. Did the author (is Whitney a female?) mean "gun rack".

I'm pretty sure it is a female...not sure about the racks though; headache racks are common around here, but gun racks are much less so outside of hunting seasons. Mostly, IMO, because BMV has become popular.