Texas lawmakers have passed a bill allowing those already licensed to carry a concealed handgun to carry one on campus — and the New York Times does not approve:
At the University of Texas at Austin, interviews with more than a dozen students Tuesday found little support for campus carry. The university was the scene of the nation’s first campus mass shooting on Aug. 1, 1966, when a sniper, Charles Whitman, fired at people from the school’s clock tower in a day of violence that left 16 people dead. The campus-carry law will take effect there Aug. 1, 2016, exactly 50 years later.
I suppose the Times writers consider themselves clever, only they don’t realize that the Whitman shooting was brought to an end with extensive help from civilian shooters:
What struck me as most fascinating were the accounts from several sources of how the police dealt with the lack of covering fire that a SWAT team would provide today. They just went to citizens in the area and asked them to bring their rifles and shoot at the tower, and they all went to their pickups, got their deer rifles and did what they could to help. Their covering fire kept Whitman down and limited him to shooting through a drain opening, pretty much stopping the killing and giving officers the opportunity to get into the building. The officers also deputized one of the citizens to go with them into the tower to give them a bit more firepower, although he didn’t end up facing Whitman.
What a different world. First, it was taken for granted that a bunch of people in the area would be carrying powerful rifles openly in their trucks in the middle of the state’s capitol city. What’s more, the police felt no hesitation in asking those citizens to help out in a dangerous situation and the citizens were eager to do their part. None of this was seen as out of the ordinary or unexpected at the time. Everyone had guns openly in public and they were willing to take responsibility and use them when asked. Perhaps most remarkably, the police saw armed citizens as an asset rather than as a threat.
Yeah, it’s still like this in northern Idaho, at least. God it would be fun to get this story out and then put the popcorn on, but not only will they not allow it out, they will drop the story as soon as they grasp the implications. But thanks for bringing this up; it’s priceless. I carry concealed when not in NYC.
Here’s the full text of the original piece from a decade ago: