Aggie student reps back handguns on campus

AUSTIN — A tug-of-war among student leaders at Texas A&M University ended Wednesday with a vote to endorse a likely effort in the Legislature to require all public universities and colleges to allow anyone with a valid concealed handgun license to carry weapons on campus.

After weeks of debate, the A&M Student Senate ended an attempt to reconsider a resolution it already had adopted by a 38-19 vote.

Student body President John Claybrook, who has five days to sign or veto it, said via text message that he still was undecided.

A bill that would allow state license holders to carry concealed handguns on university campuses has twice failed in the Legislature but is expected to be filed again for the session that begins in January.

Many state university administrations remain opposed to it. In recent interviews, student body presidents at several of those schools said they would lobby against it.

But Aggie student representatives want it. The resolution's author, Cary Cheshire, who chairs the Senate's legislative affairs panel, said any ban of concealed weapons on college campuses violates the constitutional right to bear arms.

“There is a history of human right legislation having to come from the state or federal level,” Cheshire said. “If we went back to the '50s or '60s, I don't think there is a public school in Texas that would have self-integrated by its own accord.”

Joseph Puente, a student senator who maneuvered to get the resolution reconsidered, said the school should have held a campuswide referendum to gauge student and faculty opinion. It held one last year and 57 percent of students at the College Station campus voted against allowing guns on campus.

Student leaders at University of Texas System campuses, including UTSA, and at the University of Houston say fighting a requirement to allow guns on their campuses will be a legislative priority for them.

A campus poll at the University of Texas at San Antonio showed two-thirds of students are against allowing concealed handguns on campus, said Xavier Johnson, the student body president. He said he counts himself in that majority.

Each university and college should be able to decide the matter for itself, said Michael Morton, president of the Senate of College Councils, a student legislative organization at the University of Texas at Austin. “Any one-size-fits-all solution in higher education is probably not going to be an effective policy,” Morton said. “I cannot imagine where having a student with a concealed handgun on campus is somehow going to result in a good or safer situation.”

Texas State University-San Marcos is “absolutely not” in favor of allowing concealed weapons on campus, said Joanne Smith, vice president for student affairs there.

Many university administrators opposed last year's legislative push. Francisco Cigarroa, chancellor of the University of Texas System, did so in a letter to Gov. Rick Perry. The Alamo Community Colleges System board adopted a resolution in 2011 opposing guns on campus and called for a provision allowing individual schools to opt out of any such law, a policy 24 states have adopted.

Texas is one of 21 other states that ban concealed handguns on public campuses. Colorado, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin require universities to allow them.

A spokesman for the University of Houston said the school has not taken sides on the issue and doesn't plan to. But Cedric Bandoh, its student body president, said he was “vigorously opposed” to allowing concealed handguns on college campuses because it makes the environment more dangerous.

Police chiefs at Texas universities are “split on the issue,” said Ralph Meyer, Texas State's police chief and a former president of the Texas Association of College and University Police Administrators.

But he's against allowing concealed handguns on campus — during a shooting incident, armed students might try to help and officers could mistake them for the offender, Meyer said, adding, “We are trained to shoot first and ask questions later.”