The Senate just voted 20-10 to allow concealed handgun permit holders to pack heat in buildings on public university campuses. Senate Bill 1164 by Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio (and Austin), would not change the ban on handguns at sporting events. The bill still must pass third reading tomorrow. Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, was absent during the debate.
The vote to allow debate narrowly got the required two-thirds support, 21-9, with Republicans Kip Averitt of Waco and Robert Duncan of Lubbock (read: Baylor and Texas Tech, respectively) voting against.
Liberals then took several shots at weakening amendments, including motions to allow individual campuses to opt out, parents to choose gun-free dorms or dorm rooms, campuses to opt out if studies show a rise in gun violence after the law passes, and to ban carrying in places that serve alcohol, campus hospitals, and meetings of the university governing board. All failed. Only a minor amendment acceptable to Wentworth passed.
Without those amendments, it’s questionable whether the bill has a chance of passing the more evenly divided House.
Democrat Leticia Van De Putte of San Antonio, author of three of the failed amendments, said her major concern was the dormitory setting and potential suicides, not a potential Virginia Tech-style shooting. When students encounter a low point in their life, such as a failed relationship or failed class, “they can think the world is ending.”
(Interesting to me that UT’s tower shooting never came up in the debate. Perhaps because concealed carry permits didn’t exist back then, and because numerous Austinites and students came running onto campus with their guns and actually worked with police – albeit to little effect – during the Whitman incident.)
This article appears in May 15 • 2009.