“In events where there are thousands of ticket-holders densely located in an arena-style configuration with high levels of excitement, low-lighting, loud sounds which at times may include pyrotechnics, and often the consumption of alcoholic beverages, the presence of firearms, including those held by license holders, may jeopardize safety.” – UT-Austin President Gregory L. Fenves in UT tweaks campus carry rules to ban guns at some Erwin Center events [via mystatesman.com]

“…thousands of ticket-holders densely located in an arena-style configuration…” In other words, a tempting target for a terrorist or disgruntled mass murderer. Good place to avoid whether armed or not.

They are portraying gun owners as if they are just as stupid as SJWs; easily distracted, confused and agitated by blinking lights and loud noises. Like Frankenstein’s monster, they fear we may fly into a rage the moment we see a flame, or hear a loud noise. Never mind the halfwitted, blue haired morons shambling across their campus, who whip out dildos to protest freedom, they are the normal ones…

Well, Gregory, then it will perfectly fine for victims to sue YOU and the university after some Aloha Snackbar idiot or a mentally deranged killer goes on a rampage at that arena.
I mean, you SJW’s are all about people not being able to protect themselves because *you* do such a great job of protecting them, right? So if you fail in that capacity, get ready to bend over and take it (legally speaking) because “gun free” zones are just a catastrophe waiting to be happen.

And must UT construct a Level 1 trauma center in every building, too? After all, it would be distruprive and disallowed for you to tote around and entire 50 person entourage of medical professionals and equipment of your own, just in case you had a medical emergency. So naturally the responsibility for your health, safety and security falls on the shoulders of the local proprietor, huh?

Your little “Guns banned, then YOU protect me!” argument has been thoroughly discredited, repeatedly, many times before when others attempted it. You may want to get up to speed on current events and thinking before weighing in with oudated, discredited nuggets off the top of your head.

First of all, providing Level 1 Trauma resources all over the place is incredibly disruptive to an institution (both financially and operationally). A person who discretely carries a concealed firearm for personal protection does not disrupt an institution in any way, shape, or form. The obvious answer is to not ban responsible people from carrying personal protection firearms.

As for your statement, “Your little ‘Guns banned, then YOU protect me!’ argument has been thoroughly discredited, repeatedly, many times before when others attempted it.”, I see no such discrediting. In fact, I see the opposite.

Here is the paradox that you argue when you claim that an institution can ban firearms and has no responsibility to protect the occupants:
(1) A business that fails to enact basic safeguards against a known risk (fires) is liable for injuries to patrons.
(2) A business that actively prohibits basic safeguards against a known risk (violent criminal attacks) is not liable for injuries to patrons.

How can failure to enact basic safeguards be a liability and actively prohibiting safeguards not be a liability?

I can think of two parallel situations:
(1) Suppose an institution hates cell phones for some reason and bans them. Isn’t that institution obligated to provide a fair number of landline telephones around for emergency use? And isn’t that obligation, at the very least, out of common decency and respect for human life … much less from a legal liability standpoint?
(2) Suppose an institution demands silence for some reason and bans voice. Does that entitle them to literally disable our vocal cords while inside their institution, with no possible way to re-enable your vocal cords no matter what happens while you are inside their institution? And even if you think they are entitled to literally disable our vocal cords, isn’t that institution obligated to provide a way for people to summon help in the event of an emergency that is just as fast and accurate as using their voice to cry out? And isn’t that obligation, at the very least, out of common decency and respect for human life … much less from a legal liability standpoint?

As usual, you lay a false premise, then ramble on for twenty minutes. I stopped reading after the false premise and proceeded to comment on just that. What flows from your falsehood is moot.

To wit: no disruption from a discreetly concealed carring.

You’ve taken the absolute, perfect scenario and presented it as 100% representative of all scenarios. That’s as much of a flat out, bald-faced lie as anything out of the antis. Why? Because simply carrying concealed, itself, never comprises the totality of carrying concealed.

There’s always the jackwagon who carries without a holster and the gun falls out, discharges, and strikes a bystander. It’s happened in a crowded restaurant here in Houston.

There’s always the jackwagon who hangs his gun on the bathroom stall door coat hook by the trigger guard, eventuating in a negligent discharge. That happened in a city hall, as I recall, and the owner was an officer.

There’s always the jackwagon who fiddles with his gun, drops it, attempts to catch it, but slides a finger into the trigger guard and discharges it. There are several articles in TTAG’s archives covering that in public places.

Let’s see, what else? Ahhhh…..there’s always the jackwagon who wants to jump in and save the day against a shoplifter, so they open fire recklessly. That one was at Home Depot.

ALL of these examples involved licensed concealed carriers, except the officer, who was open carrying. Nevetheless, the point is that introducing a firearm into the equation does introduce an element of risk of injury from negligence. That’s a fact you willfully ignore. Although, perhaps I shouldn’t hammer you too hard on that because you clearly don’t know what a fact is. Example: “In fact, I see the opposite…”, you wrote. Uh…..McFly….McFly…..that’s your opinion, not a fact, unless you mean that it is in fact your opinion. That would be on your part pedantic, redundant, and mindless to mention, which is why having presented your mere opinion as fact is the more realistic interpretation.

What is a fact, is that such risk exists by virtue of someone carrying a firearm. It’s tantamount to arguing that “My guns never killed anyone. They just sit there peacefully and mind their own business.”

Oh really? Then why, as a parent of small children, would you bother securing your guns on your person or in a safe? Ohhhh…..because your kid might blow his face off? Huh. How about that? There’s an attendant, inextricably linked risk associated with even a firearm at rest, albeit by outside intervention. It still exists and it falls outside of your little neat and tidy “I’m just carrying concealed and not bothering anyone!” Until you do something stupid and someone’s terminally bothered.

Now, whether that negligent discharge risk outweighs the risk of being unarmed and vulnerable is an entirely different matter. It is these risks that private property owners assess when they establish their gun policy. Yes, some get it wrong. Well, people make poor decisions every day and that, too, is none of your business. Or they don’t and just act om anti gun bias, which is also mone of your business.

Ultimately, private property is private property and you have no right to impose your little policy preferences as obligations on owners. Don’t like it, go somewhere else. That’s exactly what you’d tell someone who didn’t abide by your house rules. You just don’t want others to exercise their right to exclude others. But….but….it’s a public place! So what?

Seriously. So the F what? It’s private property which you enter after agreeing to the owner’s no-guns terms. You don’t get to impose your will, by force, via government and men with guns, on a private property owner to compel him to accept your terms. You will not, because it cannot, refute this point. You can dance around and ramble on all day, as you typically do, but there’s nothing that overcomes the trump card of private property and mutual, voluntary agreement.

Given that there is nothing intelligent remaining to say on this subject, I’ll leave it at that and grant you the final word for whatever tired, retread blunder you’re aching to belch.

Except that the University of Texas is a public institution so your whole private property argument goes out the window.

Secondly the rest of your argument is specious at best. If there are no guns there is 0 risk from guns. Wow great work there sparky. Shall we hand you the “Duh!” award for the year now or do you want to see if you can get it for something even more obvious?

Allowing guns on campus is not “risk free” but nothing is, and it’s not like there was no risk of an ND beforehand either because you’re assuming that 100% of people obeyed the law at a school of 50K+ students. It’s very likely guns have illegally been carried on campus before and you just don’t happen to know about it. On top of that a risk analysis doesn’t have only one factor. If you’d ever done any you’d know this. In a risk analysis you must balance various factors to come up with the best solution. In the case of campus carry you have to weigh the chances of violent crime, rape, assault, murder, home invasion, mass shooting, terror attack etc vs. the potential problems with CCW being allowed. There are theoretical downsides to both options so the question becomes, as near as we can tell, does CCW statistically present a greater risk than all of the other factors combined?

Now, just to nitpick you here; you’ve managed to find three instances in a country where, last year, we have 12.8 million concealed carry permit holders. That’s 0.00000023%. Wow. What a risky business we have here!

You also miss the point of uncommon’s post where they said “A person who discretely carries a concealed firearm for personal protection does not disrupt an institution in any way, shape, or form. The obvious answer is to not ban responsible people from carrying personal protection firearms.”.

Given the fact that uncommon_sense specifically mentioned “responsible people” and you jump immediately to saying that CCW in and of itself is a disruption because you can find a few cases of a “jackwagon”, not one of which you source, and not one of which you have any evidence to suggest would be likely or more likely at UT Austin, we can safely say that your argument is one giant strawman. Looks good though, keeps the crows nervous.

I said, “A business that fails to enact basic safeguards against a known risk (fires) is liable for injuries to patrons.” Are you telling me that is incorrect?

I also summarized your position, “A business that actively prohibits basic safeguards against a known risk (violent criminal attacks) is not liable for injuries to patrons.” Are you telling me that is incorrect?

Then I asked the question, “How can failure to enact basic safeguards be a liability and actively prohibiting safeguards not be a liability?” The paradox there is readily apparent to me. Is it not readily apparent to you?

The only response I hear from you is your claim that private property owners can do anything and everything, for any reason or no reason, without any regard for the well-being of their guests, and somehow that is okay because the guests can leave if they don’t like the property owner’s infinite power.

I disagree because the consequence of your position is that human life has no inherent value nor dignity. I disagree because property owners have a basic obligation to look out for the well-being of their guests, out of simple common decency and respect for human life.

And my position works both ways: guests also have a basic obligation to look out for the well-being of the property owner, out of simple common decency and respect for human life. That means a guest must not fiddle with their concealed handgun and shoot someone, nor leave their loaded handgun laying around. Once a guest demonstrates that they are not looking out for the well-being of the property owner, they have to go. Until then, they should be good to go.

Final question: people use their fists to brutally assault thousands of people every year. Is it kosher for a property owner to require that all guests be handcuffed behind their backs because they could suddenly deliver a nasty punch?

Where has it shown ineffective for an armed citizenry to have failed in stopping a mass shooting ? I challenge you on this statement . So far all mass shootings have taken place in GUN FREE ZONES , where someone has attempted a mass shooting and failed was Garland , Tx. in May 3rd , 15 when two Islamic turds attempted a mass shooting at a Charlie Hebdo cartoon exhibit and do you remember what happened , FAIL >

Everything WE do “may jeopardize safety,” but we have our scapegoat inanimate object to allow us to further control you. GET USED TO IT, or we’ll just false-flag some justification and beat you down anyway. Haven’t you learned anything at this university?

There are high levels of excitement, loud sounds, and alcohol consumption all over UT campus every day, plus all of that in low lighting every night.

As for pyrotechnics, well, something of that sort isn’t uncommon at fooltball games, or New Year’s Eve or the Fourth of July, but nobody’s ever freaked out and started firing randomly into crowds before. True, there’s usually one jackwagon, one, in the entire city of Houston, who fires a gun into the air on New Year’s, which ends up hitting someone. That’s a crime and that person gets prosecuted.

You’re not going to fix stupid, you’re going to join it, by disarming everyone else but the jackwagon and leaving them vulnerable to violent crime.

In events where there are thousands of ticket-holders densely located in an arena-style configuration with high levels of excitement, low-lighting, loud sounds which at times may include pyrotechnics, and often the consumption of alcoholic beverages, the presenceABSENCE of firearms, including those held by license holders, may jeopardize safety.

Even if they did all that and added in strip and body cavity searches, they still can’t guarantee there’ll be no violence. You’ll still have people who are bigger, stronger, and better trained, or who just strike first out of the blue or with improvised weapons of innocuous items. After all, that’s what happens in prison.

I’d want to be armed against that risk. The university, being public property, has no moral or constitutional authority to deny me my right.

When they make these protests, they are really saying, “We are not confident in our own ability to follow the law.”

Simply because they know that these regulations won’t stop criminals intent on mass murder or the murder of a specific individual, but they are intended to stop the normal, regular person, who carries simply for the defense of themselves or others. This is the person they don’t trust. This is the person they want to stop. Not the criminal. Not the mass killer. But the scary law abiding gun owner, that might snap at any time. They think this way, because they think this way of themselves.

Want to stop a lot of the the rapes, assaults, DUIs, death and injuries from DUIs, unwanted pregnancies? Let’s look at not just under age drinking but booze on campus. Under age drinking is illegal and slap on a bunch of fines and you will save a lot of lives. We are talking real lives saved not fake lives in the snowflake imaginary world.

On handgunlaw.us:
(b) A license holder commits an offense if the license holder intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly carries a
handgun regardless of whether the handgun is concealed or carried in a shoulder or belt holster, on or about
the license holder ’s person:
(1) on the premises of a business that has a permit or license issued under Chapter 25, 28, 32, 69, or 74,
Alcoholic Beverage Code, if the business derives 51 percent or more of its income from the sale or
service of alcoholic beverages for on-premises consumption, as determined by the Texas Alcoholic
Beverage Commission under Section 104.06, Alcoholic Beverage Code;
(2) on the premises where a high school, collegiate, or professional sporting event or interscholastic event
is taking place, unless the license holder is a participant in the event and a handgun is used in the
event;

There already was a law in place. The school policy is just “look at me!” idiocy.

The argument about public vs. private property avoids a common element that, it seems to me, should prevail. We ALL have an inherent right, constitutionally protected, although not constitutionally granted, to self-defense. Today that right requires the carrying of a gun (because the one threatening your safety is likely to be so armed, or to be bigger, stronger, etc.) and a gun is the most effective means of self-defense. Thus, my right to self-protection should over-ride any other issues, including the private property one. If a business (or public facility) offers services to the public, it is generally required to offer those services to ALL of the public, including minority races, genders, ethnicities, ages, those with physical or mental handicaps, etc. So obviously, private property rights do not prevail in those cases. The fact that I choose to exercise my right to go armed to defend myself, should be treated in the same manner. If a place offers services to the public, then its “private property rights” are superseded by the need to honor the civil rights of those in the public square – including the rights of those who legally go armed in the public square. A “No Guns Allowed” sign is thus, just as immoral and socially reprehensible, and for the same reasons, as a “No Blacks Allowed” sign. From a moral perspective, it matters not whether the location is on public or private property; it is the willful denial of the civil rights of a group that is immoral, and SHOULD be illegal.

I was here to say just that. No metal detector means your concealed carry is perfectly acceptable, whether you have a license or not. And a metal detector is not even real if there are no heavily armed guards enforcing its use.

But that makes it EXPENSIVE, and those costs cannot effectively be passed on to gun owners, so it is not going to happen.