TexasCHLforum.com

I was disappointed, too. I arrived a few minutes late so I didn't hear all that was said in the beginning.

Here are the important points (my opinion)
1. It was a closed session. Only 4 professors and a few student volunteers who read audience questions were permitted to speak
2. Three of the professors read prepared material on different aspects of the campus carry bill. All of them did a good, straightforward job of presenting their material and I heard no factual errors committed by them. When questions were directed to them, they handled the questions the same way - straight forward, no errors.

The professor who moderated the questions treated the about 200 member audience to nearly 15 minute diatribe that was heavily opinion based, filled with mis-representations and, at the end it, claimed that he had a CHL. His words were "I'll bet that you are surprised that I have a CHL" and the audience would have been because of his heavily negative rhetoric. The tone was typical elitist. In so many words he said that having it was good for him but not for any of the audience. I wanted to puke. He want into a long discourse on how students lost their books and back packs today and how that would be a real problem for the police if those lost backpacks contained guns.

To make matters worse, a question "what will be the cost of implementation to UTA if the bill is passed" was deferred to the President of the University. He beat around the bush for several minutes but summoned up his answer by saying "all I want to do is to keep the students safe." He never came close to answering the question are saying that he just didn't know.

I did learn more than I understood before about the bill. There are 4 Independent Universities (SFA among them) that will be able to make their own determination on campus carry. One of the questions most ask was about guns in the residence halls. Based on the heavy bias from the President and the fact that the residence halls are a local determination, the students need not worry - it isn't going to happen at UTA. One of the professors did acknowledge that if residence halls were banned, the students would be forced to keep their guns in their cars., raising the issue of theft. Of course, when you listened to the moderator, theft was no problem either because there was no crime on campus. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

I'm going sent the moderator a nicely worded e-mail (I'm deliberately not using names here) and invite him to read this forum. He has a lot to learn about CHL and the wealth of information here would help him represent himself better then next time.

Sniper-man wrote:Looks like there is an article and a poll on on The Shorthorn website.
VOTE!
http://www.theshorthorn.com/index.php/o ... ion-counts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The poll is still well short of any valid sampling (37 total votes).

The session will be interesting

austin-tatious wrote:

chasfm11 wrote:I did receive an e-mail today from UTA which confirmed the new date, time and location previously posted for this event. Unfortunately for me, our State rep to Washington has scheduled a town hall in the same time slot. I really want to attend both events but know that isn't possible. It may be a game time decision for me about which direction I drive.

I was planning to speak at UTA if I was permitted to do so. Hopefully, someone else can do it if I don't. I'd hate to see the session go South because no one was there to articulate pro-passage position for the Campus Carry bill.

I say go to the one where you have a chance to speak in support of expanded CHL rights in Texas ... UTA. There is a lot of ignorance in the public concerning what campus carry actually is. No doubt you have a chance to speak at the town hall, but if your congress critter is conservative, you'll make more impact at the UTA event, IMHO.

My concern is that the agenda may be preset at UTA and no floor discussion will be allowed, especially from a gray haired guy. While I want to hear what they have to say and may follow up with some of the facility later if I don't like how the forum is presented, I have an equal desire to get in front of Congressman Burgess. He is very conservative and I generally agree with the votes that he has cast but there are a number of things coming up where I think the GOP is getting weak in the knees relative to their commitments from when they got elected. I want to make sure that their feet get held to the fire on those commitments.

I have to be honest. I'm expecting the UTA meeting to be a flaming Liberal, anti-gun diatribe. If that does happen, I'm very convinced that they won't want any other points of view because that is the way the "flamers" work. I don't stand a snowballs chance of changing any anti's mind but if I did get a chance to speak, I figured that I might cast some doubts among the audience about the one sided anti-presentation. I might be very pleasantly surprised (and it WOULD be a surprise) to see a true open forum and a well moderated exchange of opposing ideas. I'm not holding my breath waiting for that, however.

I did receive an e-mail today from UTA which confirmed the new date, time and location previously posted for this event. Unfortunately for me, our State rep to Washington has scheduled a town hall in the same time slot. I really want to attend both events but know that isn't possible. It may be a game time decision for me about which direction I drive.

I was planning to speak at UTA if I was permitted to do so. Hopefully, someone else can do it if I don't. I'd hate to see the session go South because no one was there to articulate pro-passage position for the Campus Carry bill.

JCole wrote:I saw a sign for the rescheduled event tonight. It's February 24th at 6:00PM in the Rosebud Theater.

Thanks. I've not heard anything for the media relations contact who initially responded to my e-mail nor have I seen anything on the event calendars.

There may be a reason that they don't want to the word to get out or maybe I'm just overly suspicious. Right now, I'm planning to attend.

Update: Still no reply but UTA is closed today. I went to their website, tried searching and looking at the calendars but received no hits.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see if they reschedule. I'm going to watch their calendar.

As promised, I tried to contact UTA this afternoon for an update. I haven't received a reply. If I do, I'll post the results. If I don't, I'm going to call them on the phone tomorrow. Given tomorrow's weather forecast for the Arlington area, that might not be fruitful either.

MasterOfNone wrote:Where can I get official information on this? I'm local and would love to attend.

I hope that they send me the e-mail as promised with all of the details. If I don't hear from them by Tuesday, I'll reach out to them again.

When I get the information, I'll post it in this thread.

UTA says that their tentative reschedule date for this forum is 2/10 but that the room has not yet been confirmed. I'm supposed to get an e-mail upon the final arrangements.

I suspect that the forum, because of the weather, did not take place.

If they reschedule for next week, I might try to attend. It might be interesting. I have taken classes at UTA myself, though not recently.