Guns on campus: Discovering what gun laws I truly want to fight for

Phillip Pham is a Co-Executive of Students For Campus Carry Choice.

When committing to UT Austin this fall, I first found it hard to believe that students could freely carry firearms at any public college without factoring in the varying crime rates. After extensive research and talks with activists, I felt compelled to do what I can to reform campus carry (permitting concealed carry on public campuses | Texas Government Code, Sec. 411.2031). My goal is not to abolish the law , but give the power from the state government to the colleges individually. To effectuate my goal I’ve created a nonprofit organization called Students for Campus Carry Choice to advocate for optional campus carry so that each college has the ability to decide whether guns should be allowed or not.

Last month, I traveled to Oregon to attend a speaker session of David Hogg. As the founder of a gun control movement called “March for Our Lives” and a survivor of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, he told the story of how he grew up in a family that often used guns and how he continues to practice shooting guns in ranges to this day. Throughout the conference I wondered how his gun use and gun control movement align together.

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He explained his thought process about “responsible gun ownership.” On one side, the shooter at his school, Nikolas Cruz, had legally purchased firearms at 18 years of age even after years of public reports of Cruz threatening to shoot up his school, commit suicide, and attack people of color. Yet at the same time, some homeowners have actually used guns to protect themselves from intruders. From this explanation I realized that gun ownership is a privilege; i.e..not everyone should be able to own a gun. Listening to David, I found out what my mission was in fighting for gun safety laws - a middle ground between control and freedom.

I fully realized I may easily be attacked for saying that guns are a privilege because of the second amendment. However, the 2nd amendment only states that a “well regulated militia” could “keep and bear arms.” The shooter of David’s high school fails to have shown to be “well regulated” when, as I said before, he had regularly made school threats and held racist, xenophobic attitudes. Watching debates between NRA members and David’s fellow student survivors, I have seen that many NRA members agree that not everyone should have the right to own guns, especially with the U.S. lacking cohesive gun control measures to stop the many shooters who get guns legally.

By visiting colleges across the major cities of Texas (Dallas, Austin, Houston) as well as in rural areas (ex. Lubbock), I came to understand better the diversity of public colleges in Texas. . Through research, I saw how crime rates and student cultures across these colleges differ. . For instance, Texas Tech has nearly 9 times the number of crime incidents per 1,000 students as UTD. And after randomly surveying college students and faculty through the Reddit pages of these campuses, I noticed how conservative Texas Tech is with firearms and how liberal UTD can be. I question how Texas state legislators can in good faith set a standard for guns on campuses without considering the different crime and academic cultures.

For these reasons, I believe that we need an optional campus carry policy for all public institutions. Instead of lawmakers setting a standard, it should be the faculty and administration who actually live and work on these campuses for years who should be making the informed safety decisions regarding guns on campuses. One college with high crime rates may wish for guns to protect itself against dangerous intruders, while another college with low crime rates may not wish for guns since the threat of accidental discharges and gun suicides may be higher than an actual outside mass shooter. If UT held a public poll for all students, faculty, and admin annually to decide whether or not guns should be allowed, I would feel safer knowing that the decision making process was collaborative and voted upon. As the Students for Campus Carry Choice organization reaches out to lawmakers, government committees, and college students/faculty, I aspire to raise awareness of the issue and garner support for gun law reforms. Seeing how 19 states, with both Democratic and Republican controlled legislatures have allowed optional campus carry shows that bipartisan legislation is possible. It is not about taking all guns away nor favoring one political party. Rather, this is a united fight for responsible gun ownership.