Texas State endorses concealed carry

After students and faculty shared their views on the issue during a forum the week before, the Associated Student Government at the university voted Monday to endorse legalizing carrying licensed concealed handguns on Texas college campuses.

“This is something you never would have seen two years ago, when most people still believed that legalizing campus carry would somehow enable drunk kids to carry guns at keg parties,” said W. Scott Lewis, Texas legislative director for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus . “The students at Texas State should be commended for educating themselves on a complex issue that has been completely misrepresented by gun control activists and certain elements of the mainstream media.”

The endorsement from the sixth-largest university – with more than 32,500 students – in the state came by a vote of 24-10, becoming the first postsecondary institution in Texas to pass a resolution endorsing what’s known as “campus carry.”

This comes less than two weeks after the Texas State University newspaper, The University Star , became the first student newspaper in Texas to publicly endorse campus carry.

The passage of a campus carry bill during the 2011 Texas legislative session would amend state law so that people over 21 years old who have undergone the training, testing and extensive background checks required to obtain a state-issued concealed handgun license would also be allowed to carry concealed handguns at state colleges.