Texas State University students endorse allowing concealed carry on campus

The debate here is no different than the debate over concealed carry generally. Soon after concealed carry is allowed on campus this whole debate will soon be forgotten because all the concerns will prove to be unfounded.

SAN MARCOS, Texas (KXAN) - Texas State University has become the first college in the state to endorse carrying concealed handguns on campus.

After students and faculty shared their views on the issue during a forum the week before, the Associated Student Government at the university voted Monday to endorse legalizing carrying licensed concealed handguns on Texas college campuses.

“This is something you never would have seen two years ago, when most people still believed that legalizing campus carry would somehow enable drunk kids to carry guns at keg parties," said W. Scott Lewis, Texas legislative director for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus . "The students at Texas State should be commended for educating themselves on a complex issue that has been completely misrepresented by gun control activists and certain elements of the mainstream media.”

The endorsement from the sixth-largest university - with more than 32,500 students - in the state came by a vote of 24-10, becoming the first postsecondary institution in Texas to pass a resolution endorsing what's known as “campus carry.” . . .

The passage of a campus carry bill during the 2011 Texas legislative session would amend state law so that people over 21 years old who have undergone the training, testing and extensive background checks required to obtain a state-issued concealed handgun license would also be allowed to carry concealed handguns at state colleges.

Under the amended law, concealed carry would be regulated on college campuses in the same way it is currently regulated in churches, movie theaters, shopping malls, office buildings, grocery stores, restaurants, banks and even the Texas Capitol - which basically means as long as they have the correct permit, people will be allowed to carry their concealed handguns. . . .

Licensed concealed carry is currently allowed on 71 U.S. college campuses outside of Texas, where 33 of those campuses have allowed it for an average of more than five years. The other 38 began allowing it at the beginning of the 2010 fall semester.

To date, not one of those 71 campuses has seen a single resulting incident of gun violence, including threats and suicides, according to Crocker. Neither has there been a single resulting gun accident or a single resulting gun theft, Crocker said. . . .