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I Grew Up In A Home Without Guns. Here’s Why I Fought to Bring Them Onto My College Campus.
The Trace ^ | July 30, 2016 | Antonia Okafor

Posted on 08/01/2016 7:44:55 AM PDT by Carthego delenda est

"It frustrates me that so many of my peers and professors have reacted so negatively.

"I did not grow up around guns.

"In fact, I was raised by a single mother who despised guns, in Carrollton, Texas, a relatively peaceful suburb of Dallas.

"In grad school, my views evolved. I began to learn more about the prevalence of campus sexual assault in America, and I would sometimes leave class at 10 p.m., only to later hear about an assault on campus that night. I was sick of feeling like a potential victim. I had always been an advocate for providing a means of empowering women and I believe that self-defense is one of those tools. But it wasn’t until I was cyber-stalked that the issue really became real for me. A personal firearms trainer I knew then took me under his wing and began teaching me how to defend myself. Just as I should be prepared in case I ever have to put out a kitchen fire or perform the Heimlich maneuver, I thought I should be prepared in case I ever had to defend myself with a gun.

"It’s a sad reality that in the U.S., more than a million violent crimes — murders, assaults, rapes, and robberies — are committed each year. But it’s a reality that even my mother cannot deny. After a man was killed in his house by an intruder in our hometown, I asked my mother, who was concerned about the violence, if she wanted to know where I kept my Remington shotgun, and she agreed. I bought the gun two years ago for home protection because there’s an old saying: The best way to deter a burglar from robbing your home is the sound of a shotgun pump."

https://www.thetrace.org/2016/07/campus-carry-texas-why-i-fought-to-bring-guns-to-college/amp/

(Excerpt) Read more at thetrace.org ...


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KEYWORDS: banglist; campuscarry; education; firearms
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"I believe that guns can make us safe. That’s why I spent more than 20 hours in firearm-safety training courses — in addition to the six hours of state-mandated training I needed to receive a concealed carry permit for my handgun. It’s also why I spent a year and a half fighting for campus carry in Texas, first as a campus representative and later as Southwest Director of Students for Concealed Carry. A friend told me about the group when she saw how passionate I was. I joined in 2015, after university student governments began passing resolutions stating whether they were for or against campus carry, and I felt like my side was not being represented. As a black woman, my opinion on this issue is not always received favorably. But people appreciate that I’m speaking out about something that’s important to me.

"Our new law in Texas, which goes into effect August 1, allows licensed permit holders to carry concealed guns onto the campuses of public colleges and universities. It has been controversial since it was proposed: Some high-level faculty at Texas universities have left or threatened to leave, and there have been protests across the state. (These critics don’t seem to consider that people could already be carrying guns on campus illegally.)

"I find it frustrating that so many of my peers and professors have reacted so negatively to campus carry. Even though I’m authorized to carry my gun at a movie theater on Friday, at a shopping mall on Saturday, and in a church on Sunday, there is something apparently outrageous about allowing me to carry it into a lecture hall on Monday. By this logic, I can be trusted at the municipal library, but not the campus library.

"Contrary to some talking points, campus carry doesn’t put guns into the hands of emotionally immature teenagers. Texas’s new law doesn’t change who can carry a gun at all. It merely changes where licensed adults, aged 21 and above, may carry concealed handguns. The people who will be authorized to carry guns into campus buildings are already authorized to possess guns in most other public locations.

"Campus carry also doesn’t change the laws at fraternity houses, tailgating events, bars, or off-campus parties — the places where students are most likely to consume alcohol. Fraternity and sorority houses are private property, and their rules are set by their overseeing Greek organizations. Most other off-campus parties take place at private residences where licensed concealed carry is already legal unless the owner or leaseholder explicitly states otherwise, and as long as the license holder is not intoxicated. Carrying a handgun into a bar in Texas has always been — and will remain — a felony.

"Yes, there are occasionally times when people can carry their guns and consume alcohol. But for the most part, law abiding and responsible citizens have not been doing that because they’ve been taught by their concealed carry courses not to.

"Some critics of campus carry have raised concerns about the impact on classroom debates. For 20 years, concealed carry has been allowed at the Texas Capitol, with no measurable impact on the heated debates that take place there. I don’t agree with people who say that 21-year-olds are naive. If you’re of age, and it’s the law, and you make good judgments — just like you make good judgments when you drive a car — you should be able to practice self defense. But you can also lose that privilege, just like any other.

"I’m also encouraged by the fact that other states have implemented campus carry with very few negative outcomes. According to the final report of the campus carry policy working group at the University of Texas at Austin — a committee of faculty, staff, and students tasked with researching this issue and making policy recommendations — there have been four accidental discharges by campus carriers. And two of those incidents resulted from a license holder unholstering his or her gun to show it to someone. Under the Texas campus carry law, intentionally displaying a gun on campus will be punishable by a year in jail. The other two incidents resulted from a license holder carrying his handgun in a pants pocket, without a holster. Individual institutions have set their own rules for complying with the campus carry law and, under most Texas university policies, carrying an unholstered handgun will be punishable by expulsion or dismissal. That same report found no evidence that campus carry has caused an increase in suicides, fatalities, or assaults — the types of tragedies predicted by opponents of campus carry. In fact, the report found that campus carry had almost no “direct impact on student life or academic affairs.”

"I am not unsympathetic to opponents of campus carry. I didn’t grow up in a home with guns, so I know what it’s like to think they’re scary. But when my own LTC arrived in the mail — I opened the letter on the night of the Dallas police shootings — I realized that I now have this amazing tool to protect myself. It’s incredibly empowering."

1 posted on 08/01/2016 7:44:56 AM PDT by Carthego delenda est
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To: Carthego delenda est

2 posted on 08/01/2016 7:46:30 AM PDT by Carthego delenda est
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To: Carthego delenda est

Smart girl. They can’t brainwash them all.


3 posted on 08/01/2016 7:49:22 AM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: Carthego delenda est

Armed and gorgeous.


4 posted on 08/01/2016 7:50:21 AM PDT by longfellow (Bill Maher, the 21st hijacker.)
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To: Carthego delenda est
What do Guns and Lawyers have in common?
No matter how much you hate them, one day you might need one.

5 posted on 08/01/2016 7:50:29 AM PDT by BitWielder1 (I'd rather have Unequal Wealth than Equal Poverty.)
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To: Carthego delenda est

Good for you, girl!


6 posted on 08/01/2016 7:55:58 AM PDT by heterosupremacist (("Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Thomas Jefferson))
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To: Carthego delenda est

Good for you, girl!


7 posted on 08/01/2016 7:56:46 AM PDT by heterosupremacist (("Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Thomas Jefferson))
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To: Carthego delenda est

The best way to deter a burglar from robbing your home is the sound of a shotgun pump.

Or one of these pointed at all possible points of entrance.

Just curious, but is this young woman the lady who appears in one of those "I'm the NRA and I am freedom's safest place" ads?

8 posted on 08/01/2016 7:57:45 AM PDT by Kenton
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To: Carthego delenda est

All the anti-gunners have is lies. The continually squawk about shootings by drunken fraternity brothers or shootings over parking spaces or fender benders which NEVER come to bear. Maybe they are projecting their own lack of emotional control on others.


9 posted on 08/01/2016 8:06:14 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (Socialism is always just one or a thousand or a million more murders away from utopia.)
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Comment #10 Removed by Moderator

To: AnotherUnixGeek

I’m divided on this. I don’t know if allowing brainwashed liberal students to carry on campus is such a good idea. Now if it were a conservative campus where none of the students were on meds and brainwashed to believe that people who love their country are terrorists, maybe. I can just see Obama making use of the tools to create mayhem using students as shooters. Trained and certified CC Staff to protect students from a shooter, yes; students not so sure.


11 posted on 08/01/2016 8:15:09 AM PDT by jsanders2001
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To: Kenton
Not exactly true.

The best way is one (or more!) of these:


The shotgun click is a good second! It would sure deter me!
12 posted on 08/01/2016 8:17:25 AM PDT by djf ("She wore a raspberry beret, the kind you find in a second hand store..." - Prince)
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To: Kenton

“Just curious, but is this young woman the lady who appears in one of those “I’m the NRA and I am freedom’s safest place” ads?”

I haven’t seen the ads, but just did a quick search, and sure enough, she’s in some of those ads!


13 posted on 08/01/2016 8:45:38 AM PDT by Carthego delenda est
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To: Carthego delenda est
I was raised by a single mother who despised guns

Just sad

14 posted on 08/01/2016 8:53:39 AM PDT by showme_the_Glory ((ILLEGAL: prohibited by law. ALIEN: Owing political allegiance to another country or government))
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To: Carthego delenda est

Look her up on Google. There a dozen websites about her.


15 posted on 08/01/2016 10:02:26 AM PDT by B4Ranch ("The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.")
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To: Carthego delenda est

You can’t carry in a bar in Texas. Pity. You can in Colorado as long ad you don’t drink. I have been the “designated protector” on occasion during a happy hour gathering. Of course if I know I am going to be drinking the gun stays home.


16 posted on 08/01/2016 10:05:30 AM PDT by bravo whiskey (Never bring a liberal gun law to a gun fight.)
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To: Carthego delenda est

Smart and hot. Great combination.

L


17 posted on 08/01/2016 10:09:03 AM PDT by Lurker (Violence is rarely the answer. But when it is it is the only answer.)
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To: B4Ranch

“Look her up on Google.”

I did. She seems to be a bit of a rising star.


18 posted on 08/01/2016 10:30:12 AM PDT by Carthego delenda est
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To: djf
Yup, a claymore's quicker, but it certainly harder on the walls of your your house. Besides, it'd be fun to listen to him scream and beg before you got the dog off of him.

After you did the "cha-chunk" thing with the shotgun, of course.

19 posted on 08/01/2016 10:32:13 AM PDT by Kenton
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To: Carthego delenda est

Her professors are idiots who perform the peculiar logical gymnastics of transferring the evil of an action from the person who commits that action to the tool that they use to commit evil.

But hey, what else is new?


20 posted on 08/01/2016 10:42:17 AM PDT by Kommodor (Terrorist, Journalist or Democrat? I can't tell the difference.)
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