What You Need to Know about Campus Concealed Carry

Photo courtesy of pixabay.com

There has been a lot of controversy and heated arguments for and against the right to carry a weapon on college and university campuses. As a matter of fact, there were hundreds of debates, campus official meetings and student protests surrounding the issue of whether it was a good thing to allow students to carry weapons inside university buildings.

As of 2015, Texas passed a law that states that guns may be carried in buildings on Texas university campuses. However, this law is not as all-encompassing as it seems. There are restrictions:

• Weapons are not open carry. They must be concealed.
• Those concealed carrying weapons must be over twenty-one.
• They must take a Texas-approved handgun training course.
• They must qualify and hold a valid concealed carry permit in  the state of Texas. With the new Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, it is expected that Texas will be obliged to accept Concealed Carry Permits from other states as well.

What do these restrictions mean for campus students? Well, to begin with, the age restriction will mean that most freshmen will not be eligible to concealed carry. It will likely also exclude many sophomores and juniors.

Campus officials at the University of Texas at Austin have estimated that under one percent of their students have a concealed carry permit and many also do not qualify to apply for a license given age restrictions.

An additional restriction which some students at high schools, community colleges, and private schools seem to have ignored is that this law covers only public university campuses in Texas. It is an individual decision whether other private universities and community colleges will allow concealed carry. One that has opted to do so in Amberton University, a private school which allowed concealed carry in 2018.

Another ignored restriction is the fact that this law does not allow concealed carry at every university facility. For example, guns are not allowed in sports arenas.

Public universities can also impose bans in other campus areas. These most certainly include on-campus daycare facilities, research laboratories, and any other place on campus where dangerous chemicals are stored. 

Concealed carry handguns are allowed in classrooms, dorms, and student unions. Again individual campuses can put restrictions or limits on these areas too.

For example: concealed carry weapons are not allowed in dorms at University of Texas-Austin, the University of Houston, Texas Tech University, Prairie View A&M and Texas Southern University. Texas A&M University, Texas State University, the University of North Texas, Stephen F. Austin State University and Sam Houston State University do allow concealed carry weapons in student dorms.

Gun rights advocates are still battling to have guns banned in  all university dorms. Others claim that such a law would violate second amendment rights and students’ academic freedom.

Those who have raised eyebrows at this unprecedented allowance of concealed carry on university campuses will be surprised to learn that this is not a precedent-setting piece of legislation. Texas is not the first state to allow concealed carry on university campuses. It is actually the eighth behind:

• Arkansas
• Colorado
• Georgia
• Idaho
• Kansas
• Minnesota
• Mississippi
• Oregon

To date, there have been very few incidents involving guns on university campuses where concealed carry is allowed. Studies continue exploring the positive and negative effects of allowing concealed carry on academic campuses.