Category Archives: faculty comments

faculty comments

The Many Costs of Campus Carry

Link

Excellent article in the New Yorker, by UT professor  Minkah Makalani

It begins —

When I was growing up, in Kansas City, Missouri, I didn’t know anyone who had gone to college. No one in my family had ever gone; almost everyone found work in the city’s ever-growing service sector, learned a trade, or joined the military. College seemed like a good idea, though I knew as much about how to get there as I did how to pilot a space shuttle. What little I knew about college life I gleaned from the TV series “A Different World.” From the exploits of the math whiz Dwayne Wayne and the Southern belle Whitley Gilbert at Hillman College I understood that, whatever it got right or wrong, college offered two things: a place where you could debate ideas, and a place where there were no guns.

Read the article here

faculty comments

Mia Carter’s Interview with Diane Sun of the Daily Texan

Questions:

What is the role of student protest in affecting change in the present political climate?

In your eyes, what impact has the Cocks Not Glocks protest made on the future of campus carry?

Mia’s response:

The Students Against Concealed Carry, Cocks Not Glocks activists, and independent student-activists that have voiced their concerns about SB 11, academic freedom, and public safety have been absolutely invaluable allies to the University’s faculty and staff–a vast majority of the campus community that vehemently opposed the law due to the harm that it would wreak on an open, dynamic, rigorously analytical, and challenging educational environment. Today, one of the keynote speakers for my Department’s distinguished annual TILTS (Texas Institute for Literary and Textual Studies) conference rescinded her agreement to come to the University of Texas (see attachments below, which we have been given permission to share). Another speaker, Dr. Harry Edwards refused to appear at the LBJ School Conference named for him (“A Letter to the University of Texas About campus Concealed Carry“). Scholars are refusing to come to U.T. in solidarity to its scholarly  community.

The student-activists have helped to call the country’s and world’s attention to our plight here; they have called attention to the battle for commonsense gun control measures on college campuses and in the United States. The plaintiffs, students and I have done interviews with The New York Times, The Telegraph (UK), Swiss National Broadcasting, BBC Radio, NPR, The Nation, Rolling Stone, The Daily Show, Inside Higher Education, and The Chronicle of Higher Education, just to name a few. The Cocks Not Glocks pranksters are brilliant political activists in a great tradition of American and European theatrical, excessive, and absurdist protest (from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, to Dada and the Theatre of the Absurd, to the Yippies, Act-UP, the Guerilla Girls, WAC/The Women’s Action Coalition, the performance artist Dread Scott). Several of the Cocks Not Glocks students are Arts and Theatre majors; they are media savvy, too, and they have an idealistic vision of education and society that they are willing to fight for. Continue reading Mia Carter’s Interview with Diane Sun of the Daily Texan →

consequences, faculty comments, updates, who we are

Armed with reason, we’re fighting against guns on Texas campuses

By and , Feb. 26, 2016
Originally published on TribTalk.org at this link

“An armed society is a polite society.”

Gun advocates recite that line approvingly, sometimes misattributing it to various historical figures. If they took our literature classes, though, they’d learn that it’s actually a line from a science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein, and he’s describing a culture where people censor themselves because any offense might escalate to a shootout. That’s pretty much where we are now.

The single most common circumstance leading to gun homicides in the United States, according to the FBI, is an argument. That’s right, the heated exchange of conflicting ideas — the very reason universities exist.

Shooting deaths resulting from arguments vastly outnumber those related to gang violence, drug trafficking or any other known circumstance. University campuses, which by and large have been gun-free zones, have been relatively insulated from this kind of violence, and also from the self-censorship meant to pre-empt it. With the spread of campus carry, coming to Texas on Aug. 1, that’s changing.

This week, our colleagues at the University of Houston came up with some recommendations for classroom management in the Age of Campus Carry. Tips for professors include: “Be careful discussing certain topics. Drop certain topics from your curriculum. Don’t ‘go there’ if you sense anger. Limit student access to office hours.” As faculty at The University of Texas, we sympathize. The safety of our students directly conflicts with the legislative mandate to allow guns in classrooms. It’s our job to involve students in well-informed discussion and debate—to start arguments. And where guns are present, arguments can be dangerous.

Last week’s headlines in national and international press announced UT’s “recommendation” that guns be allowed in classrooms. Readers might have the understandable misperception that President Greg Fenves — or anyone representing the UT community — actually thinks this is a good idea.

The UT faculty council overwhelmingly supported a resolution opposing guns in classrooms. So did the graduate students association. The student body president lampooned campus carry in an editorial. Every member of the president’s working group on campus carry is on the record opposing guns in classrooms. So is Fenves himself. Chancellor Bill McRaven categorically opposed campus carry. Forty-two academic departments and programs have published statements opposing guns in classrooms; zero have published statements in favor.

None of this matters, though, because the Legislature never intended to give any meaningful autonomy to public universities in determining the implementation of campus carry. When it became clear that a strong consensus opposed guns in classrooms, Senator Brian Birdwell, a sponsor of the campus carry bill, asked the attorney general’s office to straighten us out, and Ken Paxton warned universities that they could face lawsuits if guns were banned from classrooms. The message from state officials was clear: every public university in Texas must issue a recommendation on guns in classrooms, and that recommendation must welcome them.

By asking us to participate in an empty ritual of debate and forcing us to pantomime consent, the Legislature seeks to make us all complicit in whatever consequences campus carry precipitates. To be clear, nobody can predict specifically what those consequences will be. Will an armed professor literally shoot himself in the foot in front of a class full of students, as one did at Idaho State shortly after campus carry was implemented there? Will a legally armed student accidentally discharge a handgun into his neighbor’s dorm room, as one did last year at Montana Tech? We’ll see.

What we do know, statistically, is that campus crime has not declined in any state that has adopted campus carry. We do know, from decades of epidemiological data surveillance, that the presence of guns is a risk factor for suicide. We do know that implementing campus carry will involve significant expenses that the state has not funded.

To anybody doubting that campus carry will harm the university: It already has. Prospective students, faculty, and staff have passed up recent opportunities at UT, citing this policy. On Thursday, the distinguished Dean of the College of Architecture, Fritz Steiner, said he is quitting UT for the University of Pennsylvania. He’s turned down Ivy League offers before, and says he wouldn’t be leaving now if not for campus carry. Colleagues have told us they’reretiring early, applying for jobs out of state, or planning to teach only online courses and hold office hours via Skype. Many of us have postponed work on books and other research projects — our jobs, in other words — to focus instead on gun policy this year.

That last point is not wholly a bad thing, though. Due to a congressional threat to defund the Centers for Disease Control, there’s been a decades-long freeze on research into guns and gun policy. There are only a few academic programs studying gun violence in the United States, and only through the lens of public health. There’s been relatively little academic study of gun policy through the disciplines of social science, history, government and the humanities. That will soon change.

One upside of campus carry is that it has brought together a community of interested scholars at UT. As Gun Free UT, we’ve begun to collaborate across disciplines. Few experiences are more bonding than being shot and executed together in effigy, as we all were in December. It is increasingly rare for academics from disciplines as diverse as neuroscience, film studies, gender studies, language arts, psychology, theater, music, area studies, history, government, economics and sociology to collaborate on the same research topic, but that’s what’s happening at UT right now.

As gun rights advocates across the country force guns into academia, academics will feel compelled to bring scholarship to the gun debate. We’ve asked the UT administration to create a new center for the study of personal safety, which could play a meaningful role informing public understanding of guns and risk.

Armed with reason, we’re ready for the argument.

Lisa L. Moore, UT-Austin professor for TribTalk.org.
Matthew Valentine, UT-Austin lecturer for TribTalk.org

TribTalk, a digital forum for dialogue and debate about the day’s news, isa product of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization. Learn more at TribTalk.org.

faculty comments, press release, statements by departments, students and professional organizations, updates

Gun-Free UT Statement on President Fenves’ Campus Carry Policies

GunFreeUT Statement on President Fenves’ Campus Carry Policies – February 17, 2016

Download GunFreeUT Statement on President Fenves

GunFreeUT is a large group of faculty, students, staff, parents, and alumni that support common-sense policies that ban the civilian carry of handguns on the University of Texas at Austin campus.

We acknowledge that President Fenves’s policy adopts some provisions supported by the campus community, including banning concealed handguns in university-run student dormitory rooms, facilities hosting children, and areas with dangerous substances.  It also permits occupants of individual offices to disallow guns in those spaces.  But the policy does not go far enough.  We strongly oppose President Fenves’ decision to permit guns other areas of campus, including classrooms, shared offices, student dining areas, and lounges.  We call upon the Regents of the University of Texas to use their power to amend Campus Carry policy by banning guns in all campus buildings.

Stakeholders do not want guns on campus.  More than 1,700 UT-Austin professors, nearly 1,800 graduate and professional students, a majority of polled undergraduates, and almost 9,000 members of the community oppose guns in classrooms.  The UT-Austin Faculty Council opposes guns in classrooms as do 43 campus departments and 11 academic professional societies.

In our view, the first responsibility of the university president is to protect the safety and welfare of its students and employees.  President Fenves’s policy fails this simple test.  The policy prohibits concealed carry where animals and certain chemicals are present due to concern over accidental discharge, but does not prohibit guns where students, faculty, and staff teach, learn, and work.  The Campus Carry Working Group whose recommendations President Fenves adopted concluded that accidental discharge represents a major risk if guns are handled. 

Campus Carry Policy will make concealed handguns easily accessible for many members of the campus community.  Nearly all faculty, staff, graduate students, and other employees can obtain a concealed carry permit by attending a four-hour course and with no prior or subsequent training of any kind.  If that is too much red tape, Texas has reciprocity agreements with 31 states, including some that issue licenses to nonresidents and have no training requirement.

Campus carry advocates argue that armed citizens will better protect themselves and others, but actual research shows that claim is false.  States with laxer gun laws have more violent crime, no armed civilian (who was not affiliated with law enforcement or the military) has ever neutralized a school shooter, and one of the most substantial studies on the subject shows that even trained police officers achieve just an 18% hit-rate during gunfights.

Failing to ban guns in classrooms and other areas not only makes our places or work and study more dangerous, but it also threatens academic freedom and free speech, compromises our educational mission, and diminishes the university’s reputation.  The university should be known for its distinguished faculty, the quality of its education, and the excellence of its athletes.  Campus Carry damages our reputation at home and abroad.  Governor Abbott and Texas lawmakers recently adopted SB 632 to fund the recruitment of world-class faculty to the university, including its new medical center, yet guns on campus have already repulsed potential recruits and talented faculty have resigned.  We are certain to suffer more losses to our reputation and our donor-base.

Education and research is what we do best and we are struck by the absence of fact-based and data-driven debate on gun safety on college campuses.  We call upon President Fenves to respond to Faculty Council and GunFreeUT requests to establish an institute for the study of gun safety at UT-Austin.  Such a center would make a positive contribution to the study of guns on college campuses and attract some of the best researchers on gun safety to our campus rather than repelling some of its best minds.

The longer President Fenves and the Regents wait to implement the common sense and campus community-supported ban of concealed guns on campus, the more disruptive it will be for our educational mission.  GunFreeUT will oppose the intrusion of guns into our educational spaces by legal actions guided by the best advice we can obtain.  Students and faculty are also planning numerous direct actions.  As faculty, we would prefer to invest all of our energy and talents into what we do best: teach Texas’s young adults, produce world-class research, and fulfill the university’s core mission.  As students, we would prefer to focus on our studies and future careers.  As staff, we would prefer to propel the university to new heights.  Let us keep guns off campus and keep building the university of the 21st century for the State of Texas.

faculty comments, statements by departments, students and professional organizations, updates

UT Faculty Council Passes New Resolutions on Campus Carry

On November 16, 2015, the UT Austin Faculty Council passed a resolution concluding that it “strongly opposes allowing guns in The University of Texas at Austin classrooms, laboratories, residence halls, university offices, and other spaces of education.”

In December 2015, the Campus Carry Policy Working Group (CC working group) released its report recommending the gun-exclusion zones that should be allowed when Senate Bill 11 (SB 11) is implemented on August 1, 2016.

Consistent with the Faculty Council’s resolution, the CC working group recommended excluding guns from:

      • Laboratories
      • Animal Facilities
      • Dormitories (but not public spaces)
      • Assigned offices (with responsibility for notifications and off-site meetings).

Although the working group expressed its strong opposition to guns in classrooms, it did not recommend excluding guns from them, and it reached no consensus on mixed use buildings.

Responding to the CC working group’s recommendations, the Faculty Council recognizes that the CC working group had a difficult job and that they “made every effort to remain true to the charge President Fenves gave us: to recommend steps he can take that will promote safety and security for all members of the campus in a way that complies with the law” (Report p. 7).  The Faculty Council also wishes to express its support for maintaining campus safety, but it also affirms its broader responsibility, one that includes protecting free inquiry and academic freedom from intimidating influences that impede learning and creative activities.  With that responsibility in mind, the Faculty Council endorses the following resolutions:

Resolution 1.  Classrooms should be gun-exclusion zones.

Commentary:  All members of the working group felt that guns should not be allowed in classrooms.  They were, nevertheless, concerned that excluding guns from classrooms would be considered a general prohibition and therefore illegal.  They considered but rejected the alternative, which is to exclude guns from classrooms while providing secure storage for guns for students and instructors in class.  Such storage could be provided as secure gun lockers in enclosed spaces at various locations on campus.

The working group reasoned that storing and retrieving guns introduces risks that are greater than just carrying guns.  While it is true that there is a risk to storing guns, the risk is borne mainly by the gun owners, not the whole campus.  If the risk is unacceptable, the gun owners have the option of leaving their guns at home.  Students and faculty who feel intimidated, or at risk because of guns in the classroom, do not have the option of missing or cancelling classes.

Resolution 2:  When any part of a building is a gun-exclusion zone, the whole building should be a gun-exclusion zone.

Commentary: Having parts of buildings as exclusion zones will be very difficult to enforce, while treating buildings as units will reduce requirements for signage, which is a goal of the Chancellor’s.  This policy will solve the problem of how to treat mixed-use buildings.  In addition, it means that common areas in dormitories would be gun-exclusion zones.

Resolution 3.  University personnel who have declared their office a gun-exclusion zone should be able to post appropriate signage if the “whole building” policy proposed in Resolution 2 is not adopted.  They should also not be required to meet an armed person at another location.

Commentary:  Recommendation #18 in the CC working group report proposes that an office holder who has prohibited concealed weapons should give oral notice to visitors and arrange somewhere else to meet with gun owners.  The expectation of oral notice and having to arrange external meeting space is complicated, time-consuming, fraught, and intimidating, and it is an unjustifiable burden on University personnel.  Gun owners who wish to meet with staff in a gun-exclusion zone  should store their weapons and not create unnecessary work for already overburdened staff and faculty.

Resolution 4.  The University Police should receive extensive training to deal with the implementation of SB 11.

Commentary:  A recent demonstration adjacent to campus and in a campus parking garage evoked a confused response from campus police.  Several men with semiautomatic weapons   on the roof of a parking garage were not considered reason for alarm.  Open display of a handgun or a very good replica was also deemed acceptable.  Students and staff asked officers on the scene if the open carry of handguns was permissible, and whether the garages were considered university premises, and the officers were unable to give clear answers. The University needs to establish a policy that assures the campus that the police are properly trained and will not allow armed individuals to intimidate or threaten the community.

Resolution 5.  The University should mount an initiative to study gun violence, and non-lethal means of enhancing personal safety, both on-campus and off-campus.

Commentary: As the CC working group recognized, this important area of study has long been neglected. The University of Texas at Austin could quickly become a national leader by establishing an interdisciplinary research center or institute spanning STEM and Humanities disciplines and recruiting outstanding senior scholars to lead innovative approaches to these complex problems.  This effort should include a robust multi-media Public Scholarship effort to make research results on gun violence and violence prevention accessible to the public. A working group should be tasked with developing a plan to establish these research and outreach efforts.  One useful step might be an initial workshop on campus bringing leading scholars from other institutions to interact with UT faculty, staff, and development officers to help jump-start this process.

faculty comments

Remarks at Gun Free UT Rally November 10th, 2015

Bryan Jones
J.J. ‘Jake’ Pickle Regents’ Chair in Congressional Studies
Department of Government

I am a gun-owning, former member of the NRA pickup driving UT professor.  I got my first .22 at around age 12.  I grew up in what might be called gun culture in the Deep South. But I oppose guns in the workplace.  Especially the academic workplace.

SO let me give you the TOP TEN reasons I OPPOSE CAMPUS CARRY.

10. AS A SOUTHERNER, I RESPECT THE SOUTHERN GUN CULTURE. I respect the Southern gun culture I learned as a boy in South Alabama. It is light years from the “carry everywhere to intimidate” culture of today.

9. AS A SOCIAL SCIENTIST, I RESPECT EVIDENCE.  I teach my students in public policy about EVIDENCE-BASED policy-making.  Research in reputable peer-reviewed journals is NOT KIND to the idea that somehow we are SAFER with more guns.

8. AS A CONCERNED CITIZEN, I KNOW THAT ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN.  There will be accidents in which concealed carry permit holders shoot themselves or others.  In the last couple of weeks, a guy in a theater who just got his permit shot himself—and thoroughly disrupted the movie as he screamed “I shot myself!”  A woman in Houston accidentally shot the woman she brought to the hospital.

7. AS A MEMBER OF THE UT COMMUNITY, I AM CONCERNED ABOUT CAMPUS SAFETY.  I am especially concerned about our STUDENTS and STAFF, and in particular the possibility of SUICIDES and SEXUAL assaults (which have risen in Colorado and Utah after campus carry laws were passed).

6. AS A TEACHER, I FEAR CLASSROOM PANIC.  An accidental or deliberate discharge of a gun in a crowded classroom can set off a rush for the exits, causing injuries and maybe deaths.

5.  AS A COMMITTED DEFENDER OF THE LESS POWERFUL, I AM DISGUSTED THAT GUNS ARE USED TO BULLY AND INTIMIDATE.  That is what they are designed to do.  Did you see the group of white, middle aged, and very out of shape men along the President’s route in Oregon, after the community college mass shooting there?   Those guys had such spectacular beer bellies that they couldn’t even see their guns!

4. AS A UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, I RESPECT THE ACADEMIC WORKPLACE.  OUR WORKPLACE IS DESIGNED TO TEST IDEAS IN THE ABSENCE OF SUCH INTIMIDATION.  It is designed to explore the diversity of ideas, and there is no place for intimidation.  Can you imagine an open discussion in a public policy class on gun control?  Or on anything else that might offend the carriers in the class?

3. AS A LAW-ABIDING CITIZEN, I RESPECT LAW AND ORDER AND THE POLICE.  Research shows that looser gun control laws lead to MORE shootings of police.  Police are TRAINED in crisis response.  A few hours of coursework for a concealed carry permit is NO SUBSTITUTE for police professionalism.

2. AS A STUDENT OF PUBLIC POLICY, I KNOW THAT IT WILL NOT STOP HERE, WITH LIMITED CAMPUS CARRY.   The gun crowd will be back next legislative session, and while our actions as faculty, staff, and students may be easily dismissed, if we continue to raise awareness AND work hard to BROADEN OUR COALITION, we WILL make progress!

1.  AS A PERSON WHO HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR, I FIND IT GREAT FUN TO SEE THE GUN CROWD SO AGITATED ABOUT OUR EXERCISE IN FREE SPEECH!

event, faculty comments

Remarks from a Gun-Free UT Rally

MiaMia Carter, Department of English

The passing of Senate Bill 11 was a victory for the NRA and gun lobby, primarily; it only further disseminates the belief that we should live in fear, should live in fear of each other, that danger is omnipresent and that our fears legitimize the presence of guns absolutely everywhere in U.S. society. It’s a perfect self-fulfilling prophecy and a calculating marketing policy: fear begets fear; fear sells guns. A violent mass-shooting incident generates more fear, and the advertisers of the “more guns will protect you and the ones you love” myth–for it is a myth–and its sincerely frightened true-believers, advocate for the further expansion of gun culture. None of the available research supports the argument that more guns equals more safety and protection; more guns have been proven to lead to an increase in accidents, deaths, suicides, acts of rape and domestic violence, and injury of individuals and their loved ones.

Why do our national political leaders keep outlawing funding for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) collection of statistical information about gun incidents in this country? Because facts and statistical information could be used to make policy changes, because the damage caused by the abundance of guns in our country would be made vivid, made visible in ways that resonate far, far beyond the spectacular horrors of these truly terrible and horrific mass shootings. All of the weekly, hourly, daily little gun-related tragedies would also be visible.

Professors and graduate instructors, counselors and student advisors deal with conflict regularly. Conflict over grades and comments on papers, over content in classes, over curriculum requirements and graduation eligibility; it is habitual. Teachers also sometimes have to mediate conflicts between students–and we see a lot of student depression, anxiety, personal crisis, and suicidal thinking. With Senate Bill 11, the abundant possibilities for violently ramping-up these kinds of encounters become truly terrifying.

The most tragic thing about the bill is that public colleges and universities are one of the most important institutions in our shared cultural life and one of the very few places left in the United States where people are encouraged to think critically together, to take risks, to engage productively in dialogue and debate. Challenging each other and our own cherished beliefs and values is a fundamental part of education; being exposed to a diversity of opinions and beliefs encourages growth and refined thinking. There is a kind healthy dynamism in intellectual reflection, and rational and thoughtful conflict is part of that. A gun in the room would destroy altogether that scholarly safe space of exploration, self-discovery, interchange, debate, and healthy exposure to dissenting points of view. Our rich and ever-evolving university community, and the very notion of community in this country is under attack. Our administrators and the citizens of Texas should make our elected officials address the abundant research that is readily available to them and urge them to state their rationale to the citizens of Texas and the world: why MUST we have guns in our classroom? We are a fact-based community. Address the research and explain, please. 

According to the Houston Chronicle’s reporter Lauren McGaughy (“UT Faculty Lawyers up ahead of campus carry deadline” 11/09/15), Open Carry Texas head and state senate candidate CJ Grisham had a message for UT faculty opposed to campus carry: just quit: “Quit your jobs and walk away,” he reportedly wrote on his group’s Facebook page.

We are here today to say we will not quit; we will not let our serious professional and public health concerns silence us or enfold us in the delusional worldview of the more guns means more safety crowd. We are afraid, and highly distressed, but we are going to fight like hell. We will lawyer-up; we will act-out and cock-up; we will fight-on and speak-up; we will, like the mighty football players did at the University of Missouri, stand together strongly, knowing that our fight is for the common good, and for a healthy, safe, and vibrant University of Texas.

faculty comments, myth busters

Texas Just Made College Less Safe

Excerpts from “Texas Just Made College Less Safe” by Matt Valentine, Published in Politico Magazine, June 1, 2015:

When the founding fathers wrote that the right to bear arms “shall not be infringed,” did they mean guns must be allowed everywhere, even in classrooms and dorm rooms? The University of Virginia Board of Visitors took up the issue of campus carry in 1824, and didn’t have to look far for an originalist perspective—Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were in attendance. The board resolved that “No Student shall, within the precincts of the University … keep or use weapons or arms of any kind, or gunpowder.”

This year, the Texas legislature took a different tack, and voted to allow faculty, staff, visitors and students over age 21 to carry concealed handguns on college campuses in the state, provided they have a license. (In the 2013 legislative session, Texas reduced the training requirement for a concealed handgun license from 10 hours of instruction to just four. License applicants must also demonstrate the ability to hit human-sized, stationary targets at distances of 3 to 15 yards, with 70 percent accuracy.) …

William McRaven, chancellor of the University of Texas System,  wrote to state representatives in April, warning them that campus carry could adversely affect faculty recruitment. In a nationally representative poll of college presidents, 95 percent said they oppose measures to allow concealed carry on campus…

Those who want to arm educators often cite the example of Pearl High School, where in 1997, Assistant Principal Joel Myrick retrieved a handgun from his own truck and confronted a gunman. (Some accounts forget to mention that Myrick was an Army reservist, and that he intervened as the 16-year-old assailant was leaving the school, following a shooting spree that left two people dead and three others injured.)

In fact you are less likely to be murdered on a school campus than in the general population. Beginning in 1990, the Clery Act required all colleges that participate in federal student aid programs to report crimes on and around their campuses. It’s illuminating data to swim through, and to compare to national totals. A database query of the CDC’s Fatal Injury Reports reflects 18,536 total homicides in Texas from 2001 to 2013. The Clery data indicates that only five of those were on or near college campuses. (There are currently about 1.5 million students enrolled in institutions of higher education in the state.) If campus carry will make Texas college campuses as safe as the rest of the state, they’ll be deadlier than they are now.

At one point, gun rights and gun control advocates saw eye-to-eye on guns in schools. In the immediate aftermath of the Columbine High School shooting of 1999, even the NRA believed in “absolutely gun-free, zero-tolerance, totally safe schools.” In the annual meeting that year, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said that even talking about guns in schools should be prohibited. “We believe America’s schools should be as safe as America’s airports. You can’t talk about, much less take, bombs and guns onto airplanes. Such behavior in our schools should be prosecuted just as certainly as such behavior in our airports is prosecuted.”