Posted on 04/07/2009 5:33:53 AM PDT by marktwain
Does New York massacre give new firepower to bills filed in Austin?
By Anita Miller News Editor
San Marcos — When police in Binghamton, N.Y. went looking for the gunman who killed 13 people before committing suicide on Friday, the Associated Press reported they led out “a number of men in plastic handcuffs” while they sorted out who was who.
Had there been someone in that immigrant community center licensed to carry a concealed handgun who had drawn their weapon and ethnically resembled the shooter, police might have shot him by mistake.
Tragic as it is, the New York case may serve to support the point some in local law enforcement have made regarding Sen. Jeff Wentworth’s (R-San Antonio) legislation that would allow those with concealed handgun licenses to carry their weapons on the campuses of Texas colleges and universities.
Texas State Police Captain Paul Chapa acknowledges that such a shooting could happen here, but if it does and police were to encounter a student with a drawn but legal weapon, “We’re not going to ask where the concealed handgun permit is, we’re going to shoot.”
Chapa, like the rest of the university police force, has undergone “active shooter” training at the San Marcos-based Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT).
“You go in and isolate the threat. If you go in and find someone with a gun and the call is for a man with a gun, that’s your approach,” he said.
“We don’t think more guns on campus necessarily makes a safer campus,” said Diana Hendricks, ALERRT’s director of communications and governmental relations.
Hendricks said ALERRT has “worked closely with university police departments around the country” and believes that proper training of campus police comes closer to ensuring the safety of students.
Wentworth’s bill has yet to reach the full Senate. Its language is very near that of similar legislation he filed in 2007.
Chapa said a position paper created back then by the Texas Association of College and University Police Administrators opposing allowing concealed weapons on campus is still valid today.
It states, “with regard to crimes against persons which could potentially justify the use of deadly force, such as the use of a firearm, individuals are generally safer on the campuses of institutions of higher learning in this State than they are in the communities in which the campuses are located. The majority of reported on campus crimes” at state colleges and universities, the paper continues, “have no violent component, rendering the issue of concealed carry of firearms on campus virtually meaningless in the prevention of campus crime.”
Chapa said the primary crime on the Texas State campus is theft, which raises the possibility that concealed weapons could be stolen. “If a student is going to store their gun in their book bag, we’re going to have an increase in theft of weapons.”
Wentworth’s bill, and companion legislation in the House of Representatives, “looks like it’s getting a lot of support,” Chapa said. “All we can do is kind of prepare for it. Our focus is not to deny the right of anyone to carry a weapon, he said, adding the mission of university police is “to provide for the safety and security of the communities we have sworn to protect.”
Wentworth’s’ bill is SB 1164.
I don’t recall seeing or hearing anything in the media about any resistance by the victims. I did see reports that some tried to get away but the doors were locked as in Virginia or barred by the perp’s car as in Binghamton.
Heroes like Todd Beamer (of United Flight 93 on 9/11) are rare and many people don’t want to accept the near certainty of death that happens when a heavily armed thug is attacked with a chair. I think that most people, to maintain sanity, have to fog reality and maintain a hope that they’ll come out of a very bad situation alive. In essence, the last ones that might be eaten by the alligator.
The poiticians who would entertain and vote for the illogical, deadly nonsense that supports gun free zones and prevents good, honest citizens from arming themselves at home and anywhere else, need to be targeted and voted out of any office they hold or aspire to.
I’d forgotten.....Thank you for remembering and for posting the link about this extremely brave man who was willing to die to save others.
Thank you.
Excellent observation and cartoon!
I wouldn’t be *holding* my gun in the aftermath of a shooting. They might very well take you for the shooter.
Not sure I would say anything to anybody if I had taken down the perp and there were no witnesses. Too many legal formalities.
I never said I’d hold it, either. I said I’d put it away, meaning out of sight.
So the perception that the training received to be an ALERRT Law Enforcement officer in this state is to shoot first and ask questions later, that that training is preferrable to a civilian who is licenced (or not) to carry a firearm for lawful self-defensive purposes defending themselves...
Thus our right to keep and bear arms is a death sentence if a Law Enforcement officer observes us doing so??? Or just at the sight of someone not in uniform with a gun in their hand???
You know...Things used to be a lot clearer in situations like this...
Good thing this article is good for one thing...Bird cage liner...
I thought post these *progressive* responses from the Austin American Statesman. Show the extreme fair and balanced approach the paper exibits.
Notice the guy’s name in the last letter. LOL!
Guns on campus
Last week I sat through an hours-long Public Safety Committee meeting concerning legislation that would allow guns on college campuses in Texas.
I learned that pretty much all public and private institutions oppose this legislation. I learned that more than 90 percent of violent crime against students happens off campus. I learned that our elite military academies, West Point and the Air Force Academy, do not allow anyone to possess firearms on their campuses. I leaned that this same legislation was defeated everywhere it was introduced in 2007 and 2008. It had not passed in any states this year. Oklahoma and Virginia have defeated it twice in two years.
This legislation is trying to solve a problem that does not exist. One can only hope that the Public Safety Committee listened and will say no to the gun lobby on this legislation.
Guns on college campuses is a dangerous idea.
Marsha McCartney
North Texas Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
Dallas
Re: March 20 article “Bills would allow guns at college.”
I disagree with lifting the ban on handguns. To do so is unnecessary and would not be in the best interest of university student bodies. Research has shown that to do so would have little to no effect on crime deterrence.
If allowed to carry handguns on the premises of academic institutions, it is highly likely that license holders would interfere with respondents in the uncommon event of a violence issue involving guns.
College campuses have a unique environment with high stress levels and problems with drug and alcohol abuse. These differences could potentially lead a normally sane person to commit a heinous crime if allowed to carry a concealed handgun. Lifting the ban would introduce unnecessary danger and fear among college students.
Lauren Williams
San Marcos
We surely do not need anyone waving a pistol around in a bar, and we also don’t need immature, reckless students carrying a weapon into classrooms at our schools. Nor do we need legislators and lobbyists promoting manufacture and sales of any kind of weapons.
It appears that we have a few lawmakers being spurred on by lobbyists to enhance gun makers’ interests.
Reliable reports reveal that more than 300,000 Texan concealed-gun permits were active last year, which means that at least that many handguns were made and sold. Let those who violate existing laws suffer the consequences
Remington Webster
Austin
I guess what gets me is the avantguard (sp? its a french term so I really don’t give a damn) attitude and perception that this training organization who is reciveing Federal dollars to operate and train Law Enforcment and Military??? to shoot first and ask questions later, according to this Chapa dillweed...
I’m personally tired of this over the top scrutiny doled out to the public like stimulus money about the civilians like us who have jumped thru the hoops to obtain a friggin’ permission slip to exercise an unalienable right...
Nice, but missing Ritalin and other psychotropic drugs. Otherwise, dead on. It’s the inanimate object that is dangerous. Like SUVs. Personal responsibility means nothing to liberal idiots.
“obtain a friggin’ permission slip”
Personally, I ain’t asking.
Well, you are right, and if any of us could snap our fingers, or get Jeannie to blink her foxy eyes to make it go away, then heck yes...
I personally hate feeling like a hypocrite carrying and having to have a little piece of plastic (that I had to pay money for) that says its ok for me to do so, even when I have had permission all along without it...
Good thing you don’t have to pay/extra scrutiny for a Class III. :)
Oh, now that is a big time “ouch”...;-)
That picture really captures the liberal mindset. Bookmarked.
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