Fenves Adopts Campus Carry Recommendations

Setting up a clash with his state attorney general, University of Texas-Austin President Greg Fenves said today he will use his authority under the Texas “campus carry” law to stop students from keeping concealed weapons in their dorm rooms but not in classrooms, The Daily Texan reports.

Texas lawmakers in 2015 forced the state’s public schools to allow guns inside campus classrooms and buildings but allowed private schools to continue banning them. “Paxton also argued that provisions in the law allowing college presidents to enact “rules, regulations, or other provisions concerning the storage of handguns in dormitories” implicitly assumed that guns had to be allowed in dorms in some capacity”.

Some faculty members have threatened to quit rather than allow students to carry guns in their classrooms, saying the presence of such weapons is too threatening in an environment that is meant to encourage debate. In most cases, students and other people carrying guns must keep the weapons “on or about their person” at all times. The university’s faculty council passed numerous resolutions against allowing guns in classrooms.

Campus carry has not been implemented in Texas before, but Student Body President Xavier Rotnofsky said to the Daily Texan that he thinks the uncertainty about campus carry will subside.

See also: Jeb Bush is finally a gun owner. They want president Fenves to challenge the law, and criticized his priorities. A UT System spokeswoman said that its board will review – but not necessarily take action on – all of its schools’ plans later this spring. He’s a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Guns being carried must not have a bullet in the chamber, can not be visible and must use a holster that protects the trigger.

Critics have predicted that allowing guns on campus will make it harder for schools to recruit top students and faculty. So far, 24 private schools have opted out of the new law; none have opted in.

Texas, like most states, allows “open carry” – that is, not concealed – of firearms.

But the members of the task force at UT disagree.

The new concealed-carry policy for the Austin campus goes into effect August 1, though the University of Texas System Board of Regents can amend it.

Professors formed the group Gun Free UT, and members told The Texas Tribune they have hired lawyers to explore a possible lawsuit.

State lawmakers say public universities are allowed to have gun-free areas, but it can’t result in a campus-wide – or even classroom-wide – ban.