Texas law recently made “campus carry” legal, effective August 2016 at universities and August 2017 at community colleges. The caveat: public education facilities may designate certain “sensitive” areas “gun free zones”. A TTAG tipster sent us a leaked document from a meeting at the University of Texas-Arlington wherein the university discussed which areas of UT-A’s campus should be no-go areas for Americans seeking to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. Again, these areas are proposed, not officially designated or adopted. Yet. The most egregious? “Campus-wide during finals week.” Here’s the full list . . .
Public Assembly Venues
1. College Park Center
2. Texas Hall
3. Maverick Stadium
4. Clay Gould Baseball Stadium
5. Adam Saxe Softball Field
YWCA Childcare Facility
Other performing arts venues (Rosebud Theatre, Irons Recital, Lone Star Auditorium)
Counseling and Mental Health (Student Health Center, Counseling Center (Ransom Hall)
College Park Retail (where alcohol is served)
Select research labs
Social Work Building B
Campus-wide during specific times such as Finals Week
Residence Halls / Residential Facilities
So basically they want to ban carry everywhere for those students who live on campus or in Socialist leaning majors.
Obviously if a student can’t have a firearm in a dorm, then they can’t protect themselves anywhere on campus.
Time for a quick closure of all the loop holes. Replace it with constitutional carry and require metal detectors and armed security of every entrance to any building with a gun buster sign.
Not sure I’d be comfortable with a weapon inside a dorm. They aren’t exactly the most secure areas. They’d need to upgrade the security of it or keep it in a safe if it’s in a dorm
What’s so special about a residence hall/dorm? Would you support a ban on these same students possessing firearms in their off campus apartments? What about their own bedrooms in their parents’ home, where any commuter students live?
“Email to all students and faculty; entire campus is now designated a mental health facility and is thus a gun free zone.”
Campus carry needs an ironclad and very explicit Constitutional clause to have a chance of being practically enacted. Otherwise you get dodgy interpretation of the rules to maintain the status quo. Reminds me of the Florida Mayor who hated guns but couldn’t legally ban them from his public building, so he scoured the legislation and found out ‘career centers’ were gun free zones.
Suddenly a “career center” kiosk popped up on the 2nd floor of his building which meant that floor was designated a gun free zone. Coincidentally the mayors office was on that same floor.
People mount strenuous defenses for their cherished illusions.
“People mount strenuous defenses for their cherished illusions.”
What an excellent conclusion. I’m going to steal that line.
ST…
“People mount strenuous defenses for their cherished delusions.”
Fixed it for ya. 😉
Either way, it’s a most excellent observation. 😉
All restrooms on campus. That outa take care of their goals.
Yeah random entrapment nets suck. So does college residencies. Sigh…
The last 2 on that list are extremely concerning to me.
“…Campus-wide during specific times such as Finals Week”
They really don’t trust, or even seem to like, their students. Not one single bit. Apparently owning a firearm AND taking finals is just a bridge too far and will cause adults…. excuse me… overwrought students to snap and go all wild-west and shoot the place up.
They seem to think everyone has an ultra sensitive nature during finals week. Last year at UNT’s engineering campus they brought in therapy dogs and trained massage specialists, as wells as free snacks for everyone. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Finals are always stressful, but not that stressful….
Seems to me that anything campus wide, for whatever period of time, would be a direct violation of the new law. I smell a lawsuit.
Well, that is their favorite tactic, spending somebody else’s money on a frivolous lawsuit which postpones reality for another 10 years. When some judge rules that new rules are in place until the appeal is settled, instead of the other way around, that crap may quit. Still, no guarantee.
Well, they’re “just kids” if they are under 25 years old and are military who fall in the line of duty, or thugs who attack police officers and get shot. If you are under 30 and taking any class at a university, you’re a kid as well.
They are “capable of responsible and adult decisions” if they are over 12 years old and want abortions or Plan B.
The stadiums would already be off limits most of the time because college sporting events are off limits.
Incorrect. Once Campus Carry goes into effect:
(l)Subsection (b)(2) does not apply on the premises where a collegiate sporting event is taking place if the actor was not given effective notice under Section 30.06.
Universities; bastions of non-higher learning on how to be happy with being powerless, helpless and defenseless.
A place to learn that you as a person is actually only seen of value only if you deny your uniqueness and subsume your individuality in a “collective” that denies your right to own, property, privacy, dignity, self-respect and even your own life.
A place to be indoctrinated in seeing human beings as a plague on planet earth, that western culture, particularly America, is a cess pit of racism, emperialism and exploitation of minorities.
Universities, bastions of cancerous thought and beliefs that glories in mediocrity and teaches to the lowest common denominator.
A massive reservation designated as a GFZ, otherwise known as a homicidal maniacs free fire zone.
So on university grounds, you are looked at as a peasant, peon or outright slave, where you, as an enforced prey animal, are required to be helpless in the face of both physical rape of the body, and/or the psychological rape of your mind and spirit.
A gulag; an indoctrination center for a Progressive State.
So what I’m getting from this list is that you can carry from your car, as you jog in a loop around the campus, back to your car, and that is it, because if you have an actual “destination” on campus, you cant carry their.
I hope someone sues them this list gets approved. this is ridiculous. for most students, this list adds up to “you cant carry”
Actually, this leaves a pretty huge area of campus available for carry (I’m a UTA mechanical engineering student right now). According to this list, in August 2016, I can still carry in the following locations:
-All classrooms and hallways
-All outdoor locations outside of the stadiums
-The Maverick Activity Center (our gym/pool hall/bowling alley/track and field complex, I spend a lot of time there)
-The Library (another big time sink due to the FabLab)
-The University Center (food court, post office, bank, frat offices, etc)
-All parking lots
-All parking garages
Basically, the only areas I frequent that I couldn’t carry in (because I don’t live on campus) are the research labs and Pie Five Pizza Co. Now, that doesn’t mean that I won’t leverage all of my meager power as ASME historian to try and get the dorms, non-51% restaurants and research labs to be armed zones (and get rid of that damn blackout during finals week), but still, acting like this blocks off all of campus is silly and reactionary. Don’t be silly and reactionary.
It’s a shorter list what’s still allowed, based on this proposal, than what’s banned.
“Campus-wide during finals week”–They really, truly, are pathological knicker-wetters aren’t they?
For sure. I could almost see “Where finals grades are posted” as having a fair argument behind it, but the whole campus?
Frak, what they really ought to do for finals week is have a campus shooting range and make ammo free — I can’t think of a better way to let off steam and stress!
Funny – I posed the same idea on the end of a comment on the University Paper’s website this morning… (didn’t think about the free ammo part! – let’s even make it a ballistics research lab. I’d register for that course. )
” In fact, UTA should probably open a gun range on campus to help teach people how to properly handle and respect firearms as well as to see that they are actually not that scary… it can actually be a huge stress relief to hear the bang and see holes appearing in a target in the black rings. (may get a little more stressful if you always shoot for the x and miss) but you get the point. Sport Shooting encourages relaxation and breathing, it encourages fitness, muscle control, concentration, and focus. It’s not all just hollywood blood and gore fear control. People who respect the sport, the privileges, and rights of having firearms are generally very responsible and law abiding (some youtube folks who do stupid stuff not withstanding… because the masses don’t want to see people being safe on youtube – otherwise there would be thousands/millions of views of people doing “___ Success” videos rather than ” ___ Fail” videos — but that is a topic for another day).”
And for what it’s worth – grades are not really “posted” anywhere but online due to student privacy rights and all (A good thing in my opinion at least).
Just another attempt to circumvent the law. If I was in the Legislature there that passed the Campus Open Carry Law I would be PISSED and fix that loophole that lets these College Bureaucrats keep messing with this Law.
no open carry on campus at this time- just CC. Personally, I think that is fine. I think it just makes better sense – who wants to teach a class with students with holsters and full size hand guns glaring at them – It may also be a major distraction if faculty was walking around with hip/shoulder holsters. Causing distractions and worry on the part of the not so used to gun types seems like it would hurt the issue too much at this point.
OC also makes open carry students a target of the bad guys. So many people on campus milling around, bumping into each other in hall ways getting to and from classes etc. it would be very hard to stay that alert without some type of military /law enforcement training for the average CHL student. IMO – if they don’t know you have it and you do… the better for everyone.
Their should be a legal requirement to provide a specific articulate reason on what makes these areas sensitive. These reasons should match those defined as exceptions of the carry statute.
That’ll just require more wordsmithing on behalf of the Law professors.
While in law school, I was clerking for the Army. One of my responsibilities was to conduct FOIA reviews on potentially responsive documents. I could find a reason to redact or withhold almost everything and anything – even publicly available information, such as business addresses.
Giving a list of acceptable justifications and letting the school match to them wouldn’t stop anything.
I could justify their list, as presented, by simply stating, “the restricted locations have been granted to minimize the risk of mass harm in the event of a discharge, reduce the risk of harm towards vulnerable or exposed populations, discourage weapons by high-risk or otherwise mentally distracted or vulnerable populations, and ensure that arms are not stored in insecure facilities.” Even those sound agreeable until you see how expansively they interpret them.
Katy,
I’ve always been impressed how lawyers can often argue their opponent’s position as forcefully as the one they advocate.
What would you recommend? Prohibit all campus carry restrictions (which also seems sensible)?
How about campus carry restrictions do not carry force of law? The worst the university can do is expel you, and that would be if they catch you, the police are not involved. And, the expelled may sue you! When the cost of intrusive “security”, accomplishing nothing, starts eating into Admin. salaries, watch how fast it’s dropped.
Like your thinking Larry. Contacting pro-gun UT donors & legislators might be helpful too.
Obviously, this portends an obviously absurd “checkerboard” of “black” GFZs and “red” 2A-liberty zones. Naturally, we would much prefer a checkerboard that were one big red zone. Nevertheless, this isn’t the hand we have been dealt; so, we need to see how to play to our greatest advantage.
The hoplophobes have an easy time when the checkerboard is entirely a black GFZ; e.g., NYC, DC, MD, NJ. There are NO GFZ signs. Nobody, or very nearly nobody, carries legally. Anyone who carries is subject to arrest.
Draw a straight line across the board; half black and the other half red. Still, the hoplophobes have an easy time of things. Everybody knows where the GFZs are; or, at least, everyone is on notice where the GFZs are. We PotG get NO SYMPATHY when we protest that we aren’t always sure:
– where we carry at liberty vs.
– where we carry at personal peril of being charged with a felony.
Now, imagine a State, or city or campus that looks like a checkerboard. Except, there are NO VISIBLE LINES marking the boundaries between the GFZs and the 2A-liberty zones. That is HELL for those of us who want to exercise our right-to-carry. That’s what we are looking at here with TX Campus Carry; carving up a campus into GFZs vs. 2A-liberty zones.
So, let’s make lemonade! We can demand that the posting of GFZs. We can demand that the legislature require proprietors to post EVERY GFZ. The more checkerboard spaces that are designated red GFZs the MORE SIGNS that need to be erected and maintained.
The more onerous the checkerboard is made the more absurd the hoplophobes look; IF we MAKE them look ABSURD. We PotG can either OC in our 2A-liberty zones or (whether-or-not carrying) ware T-shirts proclaiming “I Carry”. Observers will eventually recognize that as they cross the checkerboard they are regularly crossing paths with PotG who are openly-carrying or proclaiming that they do – from time to time – carry.
They will observe T-shirt waring fellows in the black-GFZs and wonder: ‘Is s/he carrying now? – I can’t tell for sure. – Should I care? I saw her/him yesterday in a 2A-liberty zone.”
How long can the hoplophobes stand up to ridicule? How much money is the proprietor (university, mall, shopkeeper) spending to maintain these signs? What ensures that everyone is scrupulously respecting the signs? That anyone ever respects the signs? Am I really any safer in a black square than I am in a red square? I’m seeing the same people in both GFZs and 2A-liberty zones; if some crazy guy didn’t shoot me in a 2A-liberty zone why would he shoot me in any other place? Because of the sign?
How to play this game? The hoplophobes ought to strive to designate GFZs BY TYPE with NO SIGNS. No-carry in: schools; churches; theaters; gas stations; beauty parlors. Just enough GFZs so that no one can complete his day’s errands without the trouble of dis-arming/re-arming far too often to endure. Only the PotG are burdened by this tactic.
What is our best counter-tactic?
– Tell the legislature that we will broke no compromise. We demand that every square inch of the State be designated a 2A-liberty zone. We will hold our breath until we have OUR OWN WAY – even if we turn blue.
– Bicker with the legislature on the details of the hoplophobes’ strategy. E.g., agree to making barber-shops GFZs so our wives can carry in beauty salons.
– Demand that the legislature require onerous signage at each entrance to each GFZ notwithstanding that it is so designated by type (e.g., court-houses).
Which of these – or any other tactics – works: Best? Worst? Which is most expensive for the hoplophobes to fight? Which the least expensive for PotG to pursue?
Ultimately, the Right-to-Carry is a battle to be fought in the sentiments of voters. The courts won’t go to bat for us. Concealed carry has been an extraordinary chain of victories; however, it kept us “in-the-closet” out-of-sight and out-of-mind.
Concealed-carry laid a foundation. By this time, anyone who cares about guns knows that lots of folks ARE carrying. Still, there is no reason to think about carry. To construct a popular right-to-arms in the public consciousness we need to think of tactics that will compel the public to think about the absurdity of arbitrary infringements on the right-to-carry.
To this end, Texas Campus Carry MIGHT be a GREAT battleground to pursue the fight. Imagine if Texas colleges merely rolled-over and there were no fight at all. Maybe 5% of students aged 21+ would carry concealed; maybe 2% of the entire student body. No one would notice; when a gun is carried concealed in a forrest does anyone hear it?
While they’re at it, those 1A-free zones should be delineated as well. Campus maps would end up looking like Venn-diagrams drawn by a stoned social-sciences student.
And normal people should be encouraged to buy a can of spray-paint once a month or so.
Would landlord/tenet laws trump campus rules for the residency halls? I’m not sure what Texas’ are like but in Oklahoma landlords can not prohibit the posetion of firearms in/on leased property.
Residency halls are owned by the campus. Campus rule overrides.
How would the finals ban even work… post 30.06 signs on every entrance to every building, then take them down a week later?
The only time someone tried to rob me on campus was during finals week (well, they tried to break into the tool box on my truck), some finals run pretty late into the evening and well after dark.
The only time someone physically threatened me on campus was after I left a dorm early in the morning and interrupted somebody trying to pry open a night-payment box in a parking lot. He stopped advancing on me when I acted like I was starting to draw a pistol out of a holster (of course I didn’t have a pistol or a holster, but he couldn’t see that).
So where CAN you carry on compus??
Anywhere you can effectively conceal. Like always, since 150 years or so.
Interesting that no rationale is presented and what’s omitted.
I would expect one place where firearms might be prohibited would be drunken frat parties.
Basis? Seems like that where most students have died from alcohol poisoning and misadventure than any other. Frats could require firearms to be placed in gun safes at venues where alcohol is served.
But my inclination is to NOT act – unless car keys are seized too. Drunk driving students cause many more deaths.
The Legislature provided an empty “campus carry” bill filled with so many Swiss cheese holes as to be meaningless. They tried to be clever: sheltering their statist ambitions, while paying lip service to the constitution and its adherents.
We’ll be back next time pushing for more, though, and the wobbly-kneed hysterical types will just have to toughen up, because freedom is coming.
I’m in mechanical engineering at UTA. The president is hosting town hall meetings about the gun-free zones over the next two months and I plan on attending them to try to get rid of all zones outside of the NCAA-regulated stadium. Thank you for posting this, it’s great ammunition (heh). Personally, because I don’t live on campus, the research labs and the Finals Week blackout are my biggest concern, but I will definitely press the issue on the dorms too. Everyone in ASME knows I carry in my car and are supporting me in this endeavor.
Also as a UTA Engineering student, it would be important that UTA apartments are not prohibited, they normally have the same rulings as Residence Halls, which shouldn’t be.
Won’t the “sensitive Areas” be the first place a dirtbag goes to kill people? These are suppose to be places of “higher education”. Where is the intelligence now? No double standards put the DC politicians on Obamacare and SS. Thanks for your support and vote.Pass the word.
mrpresident2016.com
“Won’t the “sensitive Areas” be the first place a dirtbag goes to kill people? These are suppose to be places of “higher education”.”
Also, a UTA grad student – have been debating this with people on campus forums for a while. The biggest threat on our campus seems to be people getting held at gun point at parking lots, parking garages, and sidewalks to and from campus and the edges of campus. Overall the general campus seems pretty safe, that being said, there is always that first time. Hopefully it never comes to that. At least at this point not forcing students with CHLs to leave handguns in their vehicles is a first step to helping prevent these drive up, jump out, show what “appears to be a weapon” and demand a back pack or cell phone etc. type issues.
If they think they need GFZs, then they don’t trust the students.
If they don’t trust the students, they shouldn’t believe the GFZs will work.
Therefore, to keep everyone honest, they should declare gun-free zones to also be no-clothes zones, so that everyone can observe that everyone else is compliant.
I’m also a student at UTA. An email was sent out to all students about open forums to discuss Campus Carry. They’re inviting the community to get input. They’re even offering free pizza so you know they want attendance! I honestly believe that this is a brainstorming list of places to consider bringing up and not a final list. I understand the sporting venues. Carry at professional sporting events is already banned. I don’t like the idea of the performing arts auditoriums being no carry. Anywhere where I’m stuck in a large enclosed area with lots of people is a place I want to be allowed to carry. I’m concerned about the Finals Week ban, but I don’t think that would legal as the law specifically mentions that the exemptions cannot be used as a blanket ban.
Here’s a list of the Town Hall Meetings in case anyone wants to go:
Wednesday: Pizza with the President, noon, University Center Palo Duro Lounge
Sept. 28: Town Hall #1, 1 p.m., Bluebonnet Ballroom
Sept. 29: Undergraduate Assembly, 2:15 p.m., University Center Concho and Red River rooms
Sept. 30: Town Hall #2, 4 p.m., Maverick Activities Center Lone Star Auditorium
Oct. 1: Graduate Assembly, 2:30 p.m., University Center San Saba Room
Oct. 1: Town Hall #3, 5 p.m., University Hall Room 108
Oct. 5: Town Hall #4, 7 p.m., University Center Rio Grande A
Oct. 7: Faculty Senate, 2:30 p.m., University Center Student Congress Chambers
Oct. 13: Town Hall #5, 9:30 a.m., Bluebonnet Ballroom
Oct. 13: Staff Advisory Council, 3 p.m., University Center Student Congress Chambers
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