Letters: Allow guns on campus?

I know now that when I was 21, I wasn’t mature enough to pack a handgun when I went to my college classes.

The day I turned 21, I bought a six-pack of beer and a pack of cigarettes. I thought I was ready for the corner office running IBM. As Bob Dylan so aptly sang, “I was older then. I’m much younger than that now.”

Allowing handguns on university campuses is totally insane. Next we’ll be selling bulletproof vests (proudly displaying our college mascots) in our university bookstores.

— Dennis Meals, Fort Worth

Any time lawmakers act to return power to the people, progressives cry foul.

State Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, author of Senate Bill 11 allowing concealed handguns on college campuses, rightly called Texans who hold concealed handgun licenses “the most law-abiding demographic of our population.” The data bear this out.

So why would allowing these uber-law-abiding Texans to carry concealed handguns on state campuses add “millions of dollars of cost,” as asserted by columnist Bob Ray Sanders?

Campus carry is common sense, not a return to the “wild west.”

— Steve Kilborn, Fort Worth

Guns on campus is an issue I have reservations about.

It shows how low our society has sunk when we are discussing arming students and teachers. It is a split issue among students and faculty, and I have heard from both sides.

But it seems that only the anti-gun side is being told in the media as a whole.

– Richard B. Lilly, Haltom City

State Sen. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls, has claimed that if you are scared of guns, you must have a phobia and should get help.

I’m not scared of guns. It’s the paranoid, the immature and the bullies who pushed for open carry that I’m scared of.

— Jack E. Brocious,

Grapevine

No, I’m not afraid of guns. But I do get a little nervous over all the idiots carrying them.

If some of these people are the “good guys,” we don’t need any bad guys.

— Dennis Novak, Fort Worth

Who would have ever thought that the wishes of Kory Watkins or Open Carry Texas would be more important than that of police chiefs and college chancellors?

Well, it happened, courtesy of our Legislature.

As if allowing guns of all types to be carried openly by citizens wasn’t enough, the Lege needed to make sure we put guns into the hands of college students. That’s just what immature, beer-drinking, zero-supervised college kids so desperately need: to pack heat.

I remember when I was in college and in a fraternity. While I loved my “brothers” almost like family, I can name a dozen or so that I would cringe to think would have been allowed to carry firearms.

— Frank Matthews, Fort Worth

On March 19, an incident involving a shooting with a BB gun required police to evacuate a Lowe’s Home Improvement store in Waco.

I wonder how many such incidents will turn deadly very quickly if the macho idiots in Austin approve open carry on Texas streets and college campuses. I also wonder if any of the “legislative leadership” have consulted with law enforcement officers around the state to get their thoughts on open carry. I have a feeling that we’re going to need a lot more cops.

Oh, and Texas businesses? I’ll be doing as much of my buying as possible online. Because no one in his or her right mind really wants to risk life and limb (or children, parents or friends) in a some paranoid, bizarre Wild West fantasy in which every other man or woman believes himself or herself to be Bonnie and/or Clyde.

— Michael Jones, Waco

This story was originally published March 25, 2015 at 5:23 PM with the headline "Letters: Allow guns on campus?."