Category Archives: petition comment

petition comment

A comment from our Petition at Change.org

This law damages my sense of safety, my feelings about my job, my belief that my family should ever meet me on campus, and my trust in the state of Texas. This feels like an overzealous interpretation of the 2nd amendment—which was originally adopted to protect local peoples from the potential tyranny of a State, in this case federal, oppressor (“being necessary to the security of a free State”)—an interpretation which ironically tramples on the sense of security, desires, and freedoms of local peoples (in this case, the vast majority of the university population). And worse, this unwanted law is reinforced by a sinister assault on the spirit of the first amendment to oppose said tyranny (“the right of the people peaceably to assemble … to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”), since Texas state workers are prohibited by Texas state law to lobby the legislature or strike. I don’t feel overdramatic in saying that the government of Texas is actually pointing guns at our heads, all in the alleged name of our rights.

Elana Wakeman AUSTIN, TX

Sign the petition HERE

petition comment

Graduate Student opposition to Campus Carry

I am a UT graduate student and assistant instructor. I’m signing not only in opposition to SB 11 but also in opposition to Representative Allen Fletcher, who was quoted by KXAN yesterday as saying “They can have their petition. I have mine. It’s the Texas State Legislature.”

One who so blithely dismisses those who his legislation directly affects is failing to fulfill his responsibility as a legislator. Meanwhile, Representative Donna Campbell’s tired rhetoric (“These petitions have the opposite effect of their intention and would actually make our classrooms less safe by preventing the most responsible, law-abiding citizens from carrying on campus for personal protection. Meanwhile, criminals who ignore the law will carry weapons wherever they choose.”) rings hollow to those of us who bother to search for evidence for claims of this sort. That concealed carry permit holders are somehow immune from criminal behavior is laughable. And the fact that the National Research Council report on the topic found “no credible evidence that the passage of right-to-carry laws decreases or increases violent crime” is conveniently ignored.  More recent studies reach the same lack-of-conclusions.

Without empirical support for the claim that concealed handguns decrease violence and without a clear mandate from the public, which is divided on the issue of campus carry — though the actual stakeholders, state university faculty, staff and students, are not nearly so divided — there is very little left to conclude but that the Texas officials who passed this law are beholden not to rational policy, nor to the citizens of their state, but only to the firearms industry, whose lobbying efforts are finally succeeding in legislating guns into classrooms, to the detriment of free inquiry and expression.

Justin Cope
from Change.org petition