Campus Carry Question

[LaUser]

I have no compelling reason to support or not to support carrying concealed on a college campus. All my kids are beyond college student age and the chances of them returning are very slim. However, the news of bills in state legislatures proposing college campus carry got me to thinking. Almost all college aged students are under the age of 21. If a person must be 21 or older to purchase a handgun, then almost all students who would carry are under that age and could not have legally purchased the pistol.

A straw purchase is any purchase whereby the purchaser is knowingly acquiring an item or service for someone who is, for whatever reason, unable to purchase the item or service themselves. However, purchase of a firearm as a bona fide gift for someone who can own such a firearm is permitted. And a person under age 18 may not possess a handgun or handgun ammunition, and it is illegal for a person to provide a handgun or handgun ammunition to a person under age 18, except for target shooting, hunting, or certain other exempted purposes. (Youth Handgun Safety Act, 1994)

So a young college student under the age of 18 cannot purchase or possess a handgun. Therefore, carry on campus would not benefit all students. Am I missing something?

[1TallTXn]

You're right, this bill wouldn't affect most students. But, there's quite a few staff/faculty that would be allowed to carry.

[74novaman]

You're right, this bill wouldn't affect most students. But, there's quite a few staff/faculty that would be allowed to carry.

Bingo. In addition, upperclassmen are over the age of 21. I'm 22 and graduating in August. Faculty and staff should be allowed to carry. One other thing to consider is some people go into the military first, then college.

Just because something doesn't directly affect you is a poor excuse to not stand up for the rights of others to defend themselves, IMO.

[dicion]

Unless the student is a military member, under which there are exemptions that would allow that student a Texas CHL.
Will it be very common? Not at all, but it is not beyond the scope of possibility.

The point is, that yes, while most students would not be individually affected by this at all, it would allow Faculty members, etc to be able to carry on campus.

1 Instructor/Tutor/Janitor/Coffee Shop Employee/Librarian/etc carrying a handgun is all that would have been needed to possibly prevent many of the deaths at Virginia Tech.

There are other people on campus then just students

[BrianSW99]

You are right in that only those over 21 and have a CHL would be able to carry. That would typically include faculty, staff, seniors, or older adults going back to school. The majority of students would not be carrying. That doesn't necessarily mean the ones who can't wouldn't benefit from it. If there were a VT style attack, despite what the media says, there is a chance that it could be stopped earlier if there were concealed handguns on campus. If a CHL holder witnessed a violent crime taking place, they could possibly intervene and stop it.

However, I don't think the prevention or stopping of an active shooter attack, which is thankfully rare, is the main issue. There are other violent crimes that do take place on college campuses that are much more common and I think CHL holders should be able to carry on campuses to defend themselves against those types of attacks. I work at one of the smaller Texas public universities and just this year we have had several violent incidents, including a stabbing, sexual assault, and a burglary of one of our on-campus student apartments while the student was home. As long as these types of crimes occur on college campuses, I feel that CHL holders should not be denied the ability to carry and defend themselves.

Brian

[Locke]

Many seniors, graduate students, and faculty will be over 21 so eligible for a CHL along with visitors. I’d say it is not unreasonable for 15% – 20% of people on campus are eligible.

I don’t have exact numbers but I believe the number of current CHL’s is about 300,000. There are about 24 million people in Texas as of 2008; so only about 1% of the general population of Texans are CHL holders. Also many CHL holders aren’t armed all the time. So the odds of a CHL holder being confronted with a situation where they need a firearm and actually having one is very small.

The odds are very low but even one armed person can make a difference. Suzanna Gratia Hupp testified that if she had broken the law and carried her gun (that she left in her car) into Luby’s in Killeen, TX then her family and others might have survived.

Her testimony was instrumental in getting the Texas CHL law passed in the first place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hennard

[seamusTX]

If a person must be 21 or older to purchase a handgun, then almost all students who would carry are under that age and could not have legally purchased the pistol.

I want to correct this recurring misconception.

A person 18 to 20 years of age cannot purchase a handgun from an FFL. He or she can legally purchase a handgun from another non-FFL resident of Texas.

There are fewer than 50 CHL holders under age 21. However, about half the people on most college campuses are over age 21 (looked up this number in an earlier discussion of this topic). Probably most of those people do not live on campus. They commute every day. That alone is sufficient reason to allow them to carry when they are in campus buildings.

- Jim

[The Annoyed Man]

And what about people who return to finish their degrees when in their 30s, 40s, 50s, & 60s? While it is true that the 21 year old minimum age requirement disqualifies most underclassmen college students, it does not disqualify all of them. 21 is 21. The law says that is old enough. What should any of us care if that person, whom the law says is old enough, is a student or not - particularly if they meet all of the other legal requirements?

This is the constant, and I might add, intellectually dishonest, misdirection of those who oppose CHL on campus - that somehow, people who are currently unable to obtain a CHL will suddenly start parading around campus with guns after not having been previously inclined to do so. Those folks who break the law are already breaking it, and are going to continue breaking it, regardless of what the Texas legislature does about campus carry as a component of CHL. All this proposed change does is make it legal for those who are already CHL holders to carry on campus without breaking the law (and by extension, to defend themselves against those who carry onto campuses illegally). Period. That's all it does.

Since the state has already decided that they merit having a CHL, who am I or you or anyone else to decide that they have suddenly become untrustworthy just because they stepped onto a college campus? That's a ridiculous idea on its face, and arbitrary in its execution.

[74novaman]

Excellent post, TAM.

[Purplehood]

We have discussed the issue of students over 21 in numerous threads. The vast majority of students at University of Houston - Downtown campus are over 21. I was 41 or 42 when I graduated. The trend today is for many "older" folks to return to school.

There are plenty of candidates on campus that are potentially eligible for a CHL.

[Keith B]

Funny that this came up like this. I did a little number crunching earlier this morning to see how the statistics looked.

I was able to find the demographics of a Texas university campus (to remain unnamed) and applied the percentage of people licensed in Texas against the age range listed and that percentage of licenses issued to those ages for the past three years. Here is how it stacks up:



So, if you get down to it, if the percentages stayed as they are today, the probability of students between 18 - 22 having a CHL would not be that high on average, but almost goes to 3.5 times the average amount between 23-29, 6.5 times for those between 30 - 39, and about 8 times the average for students 40-59.

[74novaman]

Interesting...I know you're not supposed to play with statistics...but by this, only about 22 of a 25,000 would be licensed to carry? Thats assuming they all are carrying as well....very interesting. And we're SO worried about shootouts....maybe if they were all in the same debate class..

[Keith B]

Interesting...I know you're not supposed to play with statistics...but by this, only about 22 of a 25,000 would be licensed to carry? Thats assuming they all are carrying as well....very interesting. And we're SO worried about shootouts....maybe if they were all in the same debate class..

And remember, these numbers are STUDENTS only. I would assume there would be a significant number of faculty and staff, probably more-so (as they are not trying pay for college ), that would have their CHL's. This allows them to be able to protect themselves as well as potentially protecting those students that DON'T have CHL's.

[Crossfire]

Funny that this came up like this. I did a little number crunching earlier this morning to see how the statistics looked.

I was able to find the demographics of a Texas university campus (to remain unnamed) and applied the percentage of people licensed in Texas against the age range listed and that percentage of licenses issued to those ages for the past three years. Here is how it stacks up:



So, if you get down to it, if the percentages stayed as they are today, the probability of students between 18 - 22 having a CHL would not be that high on average, but almost goes to 3.5 times the average amount between 23-29, 6.5 times for those between 30 - 39, and about 8 times the average for students 40-59.

I believe those numbers will change IF campus carry passes. My experience, as an instructor, is that a lot of young adults wait until they finish college to get their CHLs because they are afraid that just having a handgun in the car on compus could be reason for criminal prosecution or expulsion. We always see a flurry of 20-something applicants in June/July.