Campus works on gun-tote-law kinks

Some at college armed, others wary

AUSTIN, Texas -- As classes began at the University of Texas over the past week amid a new law allowing concealed handguns on college campuses in the state, an accounting student quietly strapped on a pistol and headed to class.

A pre-med sophomore joined a raucous protest against the law.

A professor who had sued to stop the law resigned herself to teaching with handguns in the classroom.

And the college president sought out ways to safeguard the campus culture that he cherished while accommodating a law that he did not.

While the right to carry a gun is fiercely protected by Second Amendment advocates across the country, administrators at universities in Texas, both public and private, have expressed reservations about the so-called campus-carry law. Nowhere has the debate been as intense as it has been in Austin, a liberal outpost in a conservative state.

The law, passed last year by the Republican-controlled Legislature, went into effect Aug. 1 and has turned the campus of 50,000 into a microcosm of the national debate over how to balance the constitutional right to bear arms with the consequences that guns can impose.

Those on campus are at the heart of a struggle to decide how to expand rights without stepping on others and what, if any, places should be exempt. Many professors and students worry that guns in classrooms will frighten people and discourage free expression, which is the bedrock of academia.

The few students licensed to carry handguns and their many supporters beyond campus counter that self-defense and the right of individuals to bear arms must not be restricted.

The question now is how do those abstract ideas play out -- for students trying to get through organic chemistry or meet a professor after class, professors who want to introduce critical thinking and intellectual exploration without fear, and administrators walking a tightrope with the Legislature.

Huyler Marsh grew up near Dallas, the son of an economics professor who discouraged guns in the house. As a freshman in Austin, he met a student who invited him to join the college shooting club, and he was hooked.

Now a 21-year-old studying for a master's degree in accounting, Marsh has been shooting competitively for years.

On the fourth floor of a library on campus, he quietly dropped his backpack and lifted the tail of his red plaid shirt to show a black .45-caliber pistol sticking from a holster wedged in the back of his waistband.

"I wear it pretty much whenever I can," Marsh said. "It's not that I'm afraid of getting attacked all the time. It's more like a fire extinguisher or a seat belt. You always have it and hope you never have to use it. If I call 911, it might be 10 minutes before they get here. It might be more. It's nice to know you have ultimate responsibility for your safety."

University rules still ban guns from many places: labs that have hazardous materials, some areas of dormitories, day care centers, football games, mental health facilities and the top of the University of Texas Tower, from which 50 years ago an engineering student shot 49 people. Despite the rules, Marsh said he would be able to take his gun nearly everywhere he went.

College officials in other states with campus-carry laws, such as Colorado and Idaho, say there has been little noticeable impact. In Texas, only people older than 21 can carry concealed handguns, and university leaders estimate that only a few hundred will do so in Austin. Marsh said most people would never even notice, which, he added, is "the whole point of concealed carry."

Ana Lopez grew up not far from campus in Austin and dreamed of going to the University of Texas. Now a sophomore studying pre-med in the honors program, she said she is not so sure she made the right choice.

"I had a really great world literature [class] last year," she said. "We were a small class full of different races, different sexualities. We talked about a lot of contentious issues -- slavery, racism -- and of course people disagreed."

She is worried now that in such classes that students will hesitate, knowing someone might have a gun.

In the spring, she went to a university meeting where the group that was deciding how to put the law into effect was taking comments. Lopez planned to just listen, but she noticed that no undergraduates were speaking, so she stood up and said she did not want guns in her classrooms.

She soon became one of the leading student activists against the law, joining a protest last week under the clock tower where the first mass shooting on a college campus took place 50 years ago.

Taped to the door of Lisa Moore's office is a sign with a kitten and butterfly that reads, "Ask me about my gun policy."

The campus-carry law allows professors to ban guns from private offices, but despite her sign -- a mild attempt at levity -- written notice is not technically sufficient; professors are required to tell each student orally.

When asked about her policy, Moore said, "I love what I do. I consider teaching and learning to be a sacred vocation. We want to do everything we can to promote it. I don't see guns as a part of that. So, no, I won't be allowing guns in my office."

"I grew up on a ranch, and I can still probably kill a gopher at a fair distance, but what we were taught is you don't take your guns to town," she said. "I just don't see a scenario where guns have a place in the classroom."

In July, she and two other professors sued the university and the state, saying campus carry's "dangerously experimental gun policies" violated the First and Second Amendments. A judge refused to stop the law from taking effect in August but has yet to rule in the case.

The campus-carry law was passed three days before Gregory Fenves became president of the University of Texas at Austin. He has spent more than a year since trying to accommodate it in a way that would limit the impact without inviting court challenges from gun groups or provoking the Legislature to pass new laws that could cut funding or impose rules that would allow people to carry guns openly in classes.

A Section on 08/28/2016

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