Community colleges can limit guns

Community colleges can take students’ ages into account as they decide where and when license holders can and cannot carry concealed handguns on campus, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in an opinion this week.

“Such rules could prohibit concealed handguns in specific classrooms and campus areas at times where there may be a congregation of minors, as well as specific rooms where child-care services are provided,” he wrote on Tuesday.

Like four-year universities, junior and community colleges “may not categorically prohibit concealed handguns” from campus, he said in the latest opinion on Senate Bill 11, which allows some Texans to carry concealed handguns on college campuses. Four-year public universities began complying with the law on Aug. 1, but the law will not be enacted at two-year institutions like community colleges until next August.

Paxton’s nuance recognizes that many community colleges — including ones around Houston — are teaching thousands of dual-credit and other high school students per semester. Partnerships between community colleges and local independent school districts let minors take courses on communitycollege campuses.

He was responding to four questions posed in a May letter by state Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown.

“Many junior and community colleges have Early College High Schools (“ECHS”) and dual credit students,” Herrero wrote, adding that many of these students are “fully integrated” in campus facilities. “Can a junior/community college prohibit handguns in the classrooms on the college campus, if minor children may attend classes in any or all of the classrooms on that campus?”

Paxton said junior and community colleges cannot categorically prohibit handguns from these campuses, but that they can establish “reasonable rules” that could keep guns away from minors by barring concealed handguns at certain times in certain areas of the schools.

Throughout the year, area community colleges have reached out to students, faculty and staff for their thoughts on the law and what areas of campus should be dubbed “gunfree.” Committees have met at Lone Star College and Houston Community College this fall to discuss implementation.