College system ready for campus carry law
It is illegal for a concealed handgun licensee to bring a firearm into a college building, and it will continue to be that way at Lone Star College-Kingwood although new gun carry laws will soon go into effect in Texas.
Senate Bill 11 was passed by the 84th Texas Legislature, making the state the eighth in the United States to allow concealed handguns to be carried into classrooms. And although concealed handgun licensees will be able to bring their weapons onto four-year campuses starting with next year’s fall semester, there is a oneyear delay before students will be able to carry their concealed guns onto two-year colleges.
That means concealed handgun licensees who come into any of Lone Star College’s six campuses and satellite centers will have to leave their weapons someplace else until August 2017.
“It is against the law even if you are a concealed handgun licensee,” said Paul Willingham, chief of police for Lone Star College’s police department. “You can’t do it. The only people that can do that are police officers.”
Where can concealed handgun owners keep their weapons? In their cars. Even current concealed handgun owners can store them in vehicles on campus properties, Willingham said.
“They can even have them outside of campus buildings, just not in the buildings,” he added. Handgun legislation
Texas lawmakers actually passed two bills regarding handguns during the last legis-
lative session: the Campus Carry Law and the Open Carry Law. Willingham believes not enough people understand the differences between the two laws. According to the state’s Open Carry Law, beginning Jan. 1, licensed handgun owners will be permitted to have holstered firearms.
“The Open Carry Law does not, in any way, shape or form, impact campuses,” Willingham said.
Even when the Campus Carry Law goes into effect for four-year public universities in Texas Aug. 1, 2016, people will not be able to carry openly on public community college or junior-college campuses. And when the law extends to community colleges Aug. 1, 2017, handguns will have to be concealed. Under the Campus Carry Law, higher education institutions cannot restrict a licensee’s right to carry a concealed handgun.
“There are some restrictions related to sporting events, and campuses are allowed to make some restrictions if there is a danger, for example, like a magnetic resonance or MRI machine nearby or labs,” Willingham said. “Community colleges might be able to do some restrictions, but by and large, the restrictions are limited.” Enforcement issues The year delay permitting concealed carry on to public four-year universities and two-year colleges is providing community college officials and law enforcement time to figure out what they will need to do to be ready for the advent of guns on campus. Willingham said he is talking with other campus police chiefs in states where campus carry has already been enacted to learn how it impacted their agencies and campuses.
“A lot of it is side issues like did they have to deal with gun boxes for those places that gun are restricted to allow students that bring them to lock them up and what do police departments do with guns found in backpacks that were lost and found, stuff like that,” he said.
Other questions involve dealing with visitors who have open carry handgun permits and come to Lone Star College campuses during the period that even concealed handguns are not permitted. They would be required to remove it, he said. However, he wonders what the correct police response in that situation is to be: prosecution or escort off campus.
“The general public in and of itself, I think we’ve heard a lot of confusion between the merger of the laws,” Willingham said. “A lot of folks think that open carry means open carry on campus. From our perspective, how do we deal with those ignorant of the law and aren’t sure. Technically if they have a handgun license, they need to understand gun laws because not knowing those gun laws can get them into a lot of trouble. There are places licensees can’t carry.”
He also wants to know if college police departments in states that have had campus carry gun laws tracked an increase in violent gun crime.
At nearby LSC-Tomball, political science professor Patrick Gilbert followed the Campus Carry bill as it went through the legislative session. He said it isn’t the first time the Texas legislature has tackled campus carry gun laws. During the 83rd legislative session, a bill included an opt-out measure for institutions of higher education. Gilbert said that provision was omitted in the law that recently passed.
“It was left out because of politics,” he said. “I don’t know any better way to explain it other than oldfashioned politics.”
He thinks the implementation delay between four-year universities and two-year colleges was included in the law to serve as a testing period. And, depending on who is elected between now and the beginning of the 85th legislative session in 2017, there could be changes to the campus carry gun law.
One thing he is sure of is that when the law does go into effect, “it will make things very different, not just at Lone Star College, but in higher education as a whole.”
Impact on campuses
In a written statement from Lone Star College, system and campus officials will continue to gather input from students, faculty, staff and community members about implementation recommendations. Some campuses have already hosted student forums. Gilbert said students are vocal on both sides of the issue.
Charles Wright, is a 21-year-old student attending LSC-Kingwood and is president of the campus’ Student Government Association. He said before state lawmakers passed the Campus Carry bill, the campus utilized its Deliberative Dialogue forum to discuss the issue.
“Both sides were represented so we could understand the issue,” Wright said. “A lot of people on campus are still very split.”
He said more campus conversations are likely to be held to raise awareness of the laws among students. And even though the law has already passed, Wright said it doesn’t mean students have to agree with it.
“We can still voice our opinions, and I really want to know what our campus feels about the law,” he said.
He believes allowing firearms on college and university campuses is the wrong way to go about addressing mass violence.
“If something like a mass shooting were to happen, having more guns could elevate the situation,” he said. “You could have a simple problem that could escalate because people have guns. Even if everybody passes their concealed handgun license training, it doesn’t mean they know how to act accordingly during high stress and tense situations like mass shootings.”
Wright will be transferring to the Texas Southern University when concealed carry is rolled out to public four-year higher education institutions in 2016. The thought makes him uneasy.
“I’m not OK with people having guns on campus because I think if you have more guns it makes it possible for more people to get hurt,” he said. “Accidents happen. You might be aiming and think you have it all figured out but there are outstanding elements that can take place and you hit somebody else. Missing could take somebody’s life. It is too much pressure on an individual that hasn’t been disciplined to make that kind of decision.”
Instead of students with guns, Wright would like to see additional police officers on college and university grounds. He also said focus should be put on addressing mental health of students.
“Higher education changes culture,” he said. “I really believe that. Instead of having more guns to feel safer, how about focusing on why people feel the need to come on campuses and do these horrendous acts, these mass murders.”
Antonia Okafore, a 25-year-old graduate student studying public policy at the University of TexasDallas, said all students 21 and older should have a right to carry concealed handguns on public campuses. She is the southwest regional director of Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, a national student-lead nonpartisan organization with more than 43,000 members. The organization lobbied the Texas legislature to pass the Campus Carry Law.
“We feel that when you have a gun-free zone, you essentially have a defensefree zone,” she said. “We believe every student should have the right to defend themselves.”
She said news of a shooting on a community college campus in Oregon Oct. 1 doesn’t frighten her as much as it emboldens her to continue to promote the right for students to bring handguns on to college and university campuses nationwide.
Okafore is currently not licensed to carry a concealed handgun. But, she is in the process of obtaining a license.
“People ask me why I’m in favor of this if I don’t have one,” she said. “It wasn’t allowed on campus. I spend a lot of my time on campus and now that I have a means to do that, I’m going through (licensure).”
Okafore said the handgun permitting process in Texas is rigorous and will make sure she is properly trained to handle a firearm.
“We are not becoming concealed handgun license holders to become a superhero and protect everybody, or anything like that,” she said. “The right is for ourselves as individuals and protection. No one knows what is going to happen in situations like (mass shootings), but in the end, it is to make sure that we as an individual are able to protect ourselves in case of an event like that.”
For more information about the law, visit www.armedcampuses.org/texas.