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Who Needs a Gun at UT?

Jack House

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Jun 12, 2010
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2,611
Location
I80, USA
I can't tell you for sure. I think it is under law, but I could be way wrong.

I do know this. Back during the 09 legislature session when some senators tried to push through campus carry, UT Austin responded particularly hostile. The student body council or whatever as well as a bunch of teachers and administrators railed against the legislation. Fighting it politically and attempting(not sure if they succeeded, they probably did but I just don't know for sure) to enact a school policy that prohibited weapons on campus regardless of the law.

Austin is full of miscreant hippies, it is quite depressing. :(
 

aadvark

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Texas has weird Firearm Laws concerning Schools.
However, Texas Penal Code 46.03(a)(1) appears to Prohibit Firearms at or on... Educational Institutions... whether [t]hey are Public or Private. It is a Thrid Degree Felony.
Furthermore, in accordance with Texas Penal Code 46.11(c)(1) define 'Premises' to include: 1. 'Institutions [as defined under Texas Penal Code 46.03(a)(1) of Higher Learning AND 2. Institution of Higher Learning itself, as defined under Public Health and Safety Code 481.134.
 

rodbender

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Jun 23, 2008
Messages
2,519
Location
Navasota, Texas, USA
Texas has weird Firearm Laws concerning Schools.
However, Texas Penal Code 46.03(a)(1) appears to Prohibit Firearms at or on... Educational Institutions... whether [t]hey are Public or Private. It is a Thrid Degree Felony.
Furthermore, in accordance with Texas Penal Code 46.11(c)(1) define 'Premises' to include: 1. 'Institutions [as defined under Texas Penal Code 46.03(a)(1) of Higher Learning AND 2. Institution of Higher Learning itself, as defined under Public Health and Safety Code 481.134.

You can legally carry on the campus, but not in the buildings or a part of a building.

Sec.A46.035.AA UNLAWFUL CARRYING OF HANDGUN BY LICENSE
HOLDER.A (a)AAA license holder commits an offense if the license
holder carries a handgun on or about the license holder ’s person
under the authority of Subchapter H, Chapter 411, Government Code,
and intentionally fails to conceal the handgun.

(2)on the premises where a high school, collegiate,
or professional sporting event or interscholastic event is taking
place, unless the license holder is a participant in the event and a
handgun is used in the event;

"Premises" means a building or a portion of a
building. The term does not include any public or private driveway,
street, sidewalk or walkway, parking lot, parking garage, or other
parking area.

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.46.htm#46.035
 

KBCraig

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Aug 7, 2007
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4,886
Location
Granite State of Mind
Guns are prohibited in buildings only on any Texas campus. (There are also bans on guns at sporting events, school vehicles, and school activities no matter where they are happening, but that's not at play here.)

There are school rules prohibiting guns, of course, but those don't have the force of law. This guy was legal until he fired the first shot and then entered the library.
 

aadvark

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OK..., then, I guess that I was just confused on what exactly Constitued a 'Premises'.
Perhaps I should had read Texas Penal Code 46.035, regarding 'Premises' a little more closely.
 

Dreamer

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Sep 23, 2009
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Location
Grennsboro NC
In that MSNBC story, a Mr. John Woods is quoted as saying, "I can't think of any way that the situation yesterday would have been improved by additional guns" Mr. Woods is apparently a graduate student at UT-Austin who attended Virginia Tech in 2007, when a student gunman killed 32 people, including some of Woods' friends.

Apparently Mr Woods never took a class in logic.

The fact that the police, DHS, and military personnel who responded to the UT shooting ALL had MULTIPLE guns on them, which they brought onto campus apparently is missed by Mr Woods. Apparently the fact that with these HUNDREDS of guns being brought onto campus, NOBODY was hurt, threatened, or made less safe is missed on Mr. Woods.

Apparently the fact that in 1966, when Charles Whitman killed 16 and injured 32 people on this VERY SAME CAMPUS, the only way the police were able to get into the Texas Tower was because STUDENTS ran to their dorms and retrieved their legally-owned hunting rifles and provided a field of suppressive fire against Whitman, is lost on Mr. Wood.

Apparently, history, logic, and rational thinking are no longer skills that are required to enter into the Graduate Studies program at UT...
 
Last edited:

KBCraig

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Aug 7, 2007
Messages
4,886
Location
Granite State of Mind
Editorial from a local Texas paper:

http://www.texarkanagazette.com/news/editorial/2010/10/01/guns-on-campus-51.php

Guns On Campus
Armed civilians helped keep death toll down in notorious rampage
Published: 10/01/2010
The state of Texas bans firearms on college campuses.

But that didn’t stop Colton Tooley, a math major at the school, from taking an AK-47 rifle to the University of Texas campus this week in Austin, discharging numerous rounds and then turning the gun on himself.

Tooley died at the scene, but thankfully no one else was injured or killed.

But they could have been, as everyone in Texas knows all too well.

We only have to go back in time, to Aug. 1, 1966, . . . .

The death toll would have been much higher if not for civilians who had their own weapons and who joined law enforcement authorities in returning fire, effectively pinning Whitman down and making it difficult for him to aim and shoot as accurately as he had when the rampage started. . . . .

So would allowing guns on campus save lives?

All we can say is that guns on campus did save lives—back on Aug. 1, 1966. And they could again.
 
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