The following letter to the editor appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Tuesday.  I’ve been wanting to tear into it, but I haven’t had time until today.

College students have shown such amazing maturity with respect to alcohol, frat rituals and spring break (just visit Cancun in March and see for yourselves), that it seems only obvious we should throw concealed handguns into the mix.

What are Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, and Reps. Joe Driver, R-Garland, and Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, thinking? (See: “Gun bills are in lawmakers’ sights,” March 1)

If these bills become law, they will bring the law of unintended consequences: only Texans will be foolish enough and culturally inclined to apply to colleges that allow concealed handguns on campuses. And Texas will reinforce its image as “a whole ’nother country” and “the home of broad lawns and narrow minds.”

Most of our Texas colleges and universities are too good and too safe to suffer this foolishness!

— Rufus Schriber, Fort Worth

While Mr. Schriber’s PSH-laden missive would have us conjure up the old Animal House image of college students as a bunch of drunken frat boys, it helps to remember that people who are licensed to carry concealed are adults over the age of 21 who have clean criminal backgrounds and are perhaps the most law-abiding segment of society that you will find.  The idea that someone with a CHL will get drunk and shoot up the campus is ridiculous on its face.  Responsible adults with a CHL simply aren’t going to be doing this.

This line, though, is highly ironic:

…only Texans will be foolish enough and culturally inclined to apply to colleges that allow concealed handguns on campuses. And Texas will reinforce its image as “a whole ’nother country” and “the home of broad lawns and narrow minds.”

The writer accuses us of having narrow minds, while being quite guilty of the same alleged fault.  I mention this because there are indeed other states where concealed carry is either explicitly allowed or possible if the school allows it:

15 “Right-to-Carry” states leave the decision of concealed carry on college campuses entirely to each college/university. A person with a license/permit who was caught carrying a firearm on a college campus could not be held criminally liable but students and employees of a university would be expelled or have their employment terminated. These states are Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia.

Though these states contain a few colleges/universities, such as Colorado State University (Fort Collins, CO) and Blue Ridge Community College (Weyers Cave, VA), that allow concealed carry on campus, most prohibit it. Utah is the only state to allow concealed carry at all public colleges/universities, by prohibiting public colleges/universities from creating their own restrictions.

Of course, this seems par for the course with this kind of blood-will-run-in-the-streets hysteria.  Everywhere that expansion of the right to carry is proposed someone can be relied upon to come out of the woodwork (much like the cuckoo in a cuckoo-clock) to claim that their state will become the OK Corral, completely ignoring the experience of the other states that have already done so.

Aside from this letter I also heard a comment from a member of some anti-gun group claiming that our Texas universities are already very safe and that most crime occurs off-campus.  This may be true, but it ignores the fact that a lot of crime occurs when law-abiding adult students are going to-and-from campus and are legally required to be disarmed because of the law against carrying on school premises.  While the new law itself won’t stop all crime, it is a good start towards making our campuses safer against both mass-murderers and on-and-near-campus rapists. 

It’s always good to remember that wherever the law bans guns, it just means that only the victims will be disarmed.  Bad guys don’t give a damn about any silly laws.