Despite a potentially uphill battle in the Texas Senate, a bill to allow carrying concealed weapons in university buildings made it through a Senate panel.
The House passed House Bill 972 from Allen Fletcher, R-Tomball, which would allow concealed carry unless the university opts out every year after talking with students, faculty and staff. The bill then went to the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, where it passed 4-2.
The bill still would not allow guns in places such as hospitals or sporting events.
“This law makes sense from the common man’s position,” said William Beihl, a license holder at the committee meeting.
Beihl said he doesn’t even risk taking his gun with him on visits to his daughter at college.
One student who asked for campus carry said he would carry “religiously” if the bill passed.
Lance Littlejohn, a professor of mathematics at Baylor University, said he represented a group of 200 staff, faculty and students who didn’t want concealed carry. He said he left his post in a Utah university partly because of fear after campus carry there became legal.
He said he feared giving a student a bad grade would “literally let me have it with both barrels.”
“I don’t want to add fuel to the fire,” Littlejohn said.
“Everything you’re saying here was expressed 15 years ago” Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said about when concealed carry as a whole was debated. “And we have less crime in Texas.”
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