Under current law, more than 461,000 Texans have concealed handgun licenses — including an undetermined number of lawmakers. Licensing lists are kept secretReprinted from the Statesman. Read the complete story.
Send your comments and news tips to roundup.editor@gmail.com, to the Statesman's article, to Sen. Wentworth at jeff.wentworth@senate.state.tx.us (512.463.0125) or click on the "comments" at the bottom of the story
By Mike Ward
mward@statesman.com
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 10:47 p.m. Monday, May 9, 2011
Shooting past previous delays, the Texas Senate on Monday approved two bills that would allow more Texans to carry their concealed handguns in more places.
One highly controversial bill would let licensed Texans carry concealed handguns inside buildings at public colleges and universities for the first time.
On the other, senators, without debate, quickly gave themselves the authority to pack pistols anyplace they choose, including schools, bars and hospitals — locations that are prohibited for the general public.
Sen. Wentworth represents
Hays County in the 25th Senatorial District
Hays County in the 25th Senatorial District
"I'm more hopeful today than I ever have been that this bill will pass," Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, said after his campus-carry bill was added to a separate bill dealing with higher education funding that received final passage in the Senate."I felt like it was Groundhog Day — doing the same thing over and over. But we were successful today, and this is an important bill the amendment went into, so I think it will pass."
The final vote for Senate Bill 1581 including the campus-carry wording was 19-12. The measure now goes to the House, where a separate version of campus-carry has been hung up for weeks awaiting a vote.
13 comments:
Actually, his name was spelled "Goetz." He was called the "Subway Vigilante."
But, yes, I agree. This bill will only bring out the "Cow Patty Vigilantes."
The Texas legislators who support this type of madness are real idiots - as are the people who voted for them.
E-mail I send to Sen. Wentworth:
"With All Due Respect:
Allowing you legislators to have guns is one thing, but to allow guns on college campuses is totally insane.
And why stop there? Why not allow prisoners to have guns so they can protect themselves from each other? Or why not allow guns for high schoolers to protect themselves from bullying. Where does it stop, Mr. Wentworth?
Are you and your state legislator ilk so insensitive to the wishes of law enforcement that you will jeapordize their safety for your own political pandering?
You, Sir, are a hypocritical big government conservative."
Rocky, giving prisoners or high schoolers guns is not anywhere close to allowing those who are 21 or older and have completed a CHL class to carry there concealed handgun with them on a college campus.
Last Anonymous excuses the slippery slope of political pandering big government legislation.
And do you have no respect for law enforcement, Anonymous? They do not support this silliness and know this type of indicriminate gun toting nonsense will only increase violence. It is only a matter of time.
This is a good first step to including all persons with a CHL to carry anywhere they wish. I think that is a good idea and it will prevent crime. Those that don't think so were probably raised by an overbearing Mother or a wimpy Father or both. The kid on TV that just stood there and let the bully beat hell out of him without even trying to defend himself is likely a product of such a home. It is a basic human instinct to defend one's self when attacked. I'm old and couldn't whip anybody but I can sure as hell end their days if I have to. I carry everywhere except the airport because of the T esticle Squeezers Association.
Anonymous of May 11, 6:28 PM said:
“Those that don't think so were probably raised by an overbearing Mother or a wimpy Father or both.”
First of all, you don’t need to capitalize the words mother or father in the sentence. Second, my mother was a woman who taught me that name calling as a substitute for intelligent debate is what stupid people do. I guess that makes her “overbearing.” Third, my father was 1938 Illinois Golden Gloves heavyweight boxing state champ. So yes, I guess someone who is out of touch with reality could say my father was “wimpy.”
Also, Anonymous, two can play dumb. What if I reversed the idiotic psycho-babble name calling as well? How about:
Gun nuts:
1) must have had abusive alcoholic fathers
2) have small Johnsons
3) Viagra won’t work for them
4) All of the above
See, if I believed this type of stereotyped silliness - that all of my smart and gentle friends who have tons of guns had those traits, wouldn’t I look like a real fool?
Fortunately my intelligent gun owner friends think the “guns on college campus” foolishness is just that: Macho Second Amendment political nonsense.
Anonymous Gunny also says:
“It is a basic human instinct to defend one's self when attacked. I'm old and couldn't whip anybody but I can sure as hell end their days if I have to.”
All I can say is I’m sorry your aging fantasy of being Schwarzenegger or Seagal during one of the monthly mass murderer besieged college campus events never came to fruition for you.
And finally, Anonymous trigger says:
“I carry everywhere except the airport because of the Testicle Squeezers Association.”
Again, I’m sorry another one of your fantasies has been denied you.
Finally, don’t shoot yourself in the ass on the way out the door.
The idea of guns on college campuses is simply insane, as is this notion that legislators need guns everywhere they go.
I keep my guns at home, where they belong.
And besides, when I was growing up, I was taught that guns were for either hunting or just having, but NOT for shooting people. Like NEVER.
That 2:23 comment is interesting. It is not a matter of respecting law enforcement, it is a matter of realizing what law enforcement is able to do. When gunshots are heard they dont rush the building, they wait, and wait, and wait----listening to the gunfire---waiting for SWAT to arrive, get organized, and finally move forward very slowly. Law enforcement, in the end, simply retrieved the weapons, counted the bodies, and left.
The did nothing to stop the badguy. Just watch the latest videos of campus shootings. Sometimes they shoot the badguy after he is out of ammo. In all cases, if a goodguy had a gun, the body count would have been much less.
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force. The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gangbanger, and a single gay guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat–it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed. People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser. People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level. The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weightlifter. It simply wouldn’t work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation…and that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act.
hey annon at 223
was that on purpose. 223 is a good round
Yes, a .223 is a great round but it's hard to conceal my AR-15 or my Ruger Mini 14. That is why I want "open carry"! Any pistol, revolver or rifle becomes a better deterrent when the bad guys know you have it. Having only Concealed carry is an unconstitutional restriction on our 2nd. Amendment rights.
The John Wayne wannabees who comment on this blog about how shooting "bad guys" is like a teenager's video game misses the larger issue.
First, Texas already has a law that allows each college campus to have concealed weapons if they choose. So the pandering Texas politicians should respect the law and allow campuses to choose so selectively.
Second, colleges and universities have a youthful population, which means they have more assertive political temperments than adults, and hence are compelled to initiate political demonstrations and counter demonstrations that can turn violent. If radicals on the right or left want to make a bad scene, guns on campus can make the situation potentially deadly.
So, do all you Constitutionalists really want to see "whitey gunsmith" or "skinhead redneck" battle "black panther 2nd gen" or "21st century Weatherman Underground" have a gunfight at the campus corral?
The truth is leftist radicals will carry guns if they know constitutionally-mindless or confederacy-loving students will
"carry" as well.
And finally, even Jan Brewer, the infamous anti-immigration Arizona Governor, had the sense to veto such a bill. Her logic was that airports, primary schools and college campuses have special environments that should not be tainted by gun politics and right wing political pandering.
The truth is Perry, Wentworth and the other asses up in Austin don't care about your safety or your freedom. All they care about is their image as some John Wayne character who gets emotional votes by instituting their hypocritical big government legislating, sacrificing incrementally the purity of smaller government conservatism.
Rocky:
You attacked my position with reason rather than force. Well said my friend. Much better comeback than that blah blah blah anon.
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