Give UT Austin gun advocates a chamber round

The fight over guns on Texas college campuses boiled down to one bullet Thursday.

That is, one bullet in the chamber of every concealed semiautomatic pistol that licensed gun owners decide to carry at the University of Texas at Austin when a new state law takes effect next month.

University of Texas System regents struck down a rule adopted by the flagship campus president saying there should be no rounds in the chambers of those guns, a safety measure aimed at avoiding accidental discharge.

But the rule also was symbolic of the heated debate over the new law at UT Austin. Texas has more than three dozen public universities, and at none of them has campus carry caused such a ruckus as at UT Austin.

Regents have the authority to veto campus rules under campus-carry provisions adopted by the Legislature last year. When it came to that, nobody put together a convincing argument for the empty chamber.

None of the other UT System schools — in fact, no other Texas university — adopted such a rule.

The safety argument itself fell apart. Gun experts assembled by the advocacy organization Students for Concealed Carry saw to that.

Most accidental discharges happen when weapons are being loaded or unloaded, the group’s experts have said ever since UT Austin President Gregory Fenves adopted the rule.

The organization says “every shooting school, police academy and military branch in the U.S.” teaches trainees to carry semiautomatic pistols with a round in the chamber so they can quickly use the gun in an emergency.

Even the few seconds required to load a round in the chamber could be the difference between life and death.

Fenves, an opponent of campus carry in general, said he opted for the safety argument rather than the tactical advantage argument.

But the advocacy group countered effectively. Because it’s the way they’re taught, gun owners will probably have a round in the chamber when they arrive on campus, the organization argued.

They’d have to remove that round, probably in the confines of their parked vehicle, which introduces an element of danger. UT regents apparently were swayed.

They rejected another argument from campus-carry advocates, allowing UT Austin to keep a rule saying professors and others who have single-occupant offices at the university could ban guns there.

Guns will be allowed in classrooms. Most Texas private universities have opted out of campus carry.

This story was originally published July 13, 2016 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Give UT Austin gun advocates a chamber round."