No guns in my classroom

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EL PASO –I don’t want guns in my classroom.

Before Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs into law legislation passed Sunday by the state legislature, which allows individuals to carry concealed handguns into  public university campuses, he should take a moment to actually think.

I am saddened by the endless arguments from gun rights advocates and the counter-arguments from their opponents, insistent arguments that imply that logic can prevail in absurdity. The logic is always twisted. Some say more guns on the street will stop the killing. Others say that more guns on the streets will kill more people.

I just know that I don’t want guns in my classroom.

Related: Texas stares down the barrel of the campus carry debate

As a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, I am saddened by what the legislators have done and saddened that Abbot will likely sign the legislation into law.

I am saddened that after 10 years of teaching here I will see guns appear legally on this beautiful campus where for a few hours every week students and teachers can agree to disagree as mentors and acolytes have done since Socrates demanded answers in Athens, safely protected from the terrors of the world.

That is, until the state made him drink the hemlock.

I am saddened that the state will permit individuals to carry lethal weapons with impunity into my classroom. No one can prevent a maniac from entering my classroom, shooting us all to death, but why should the state provide a legal way for that killer to bring a gun into my classroom?

I am saddened by the recollection that in the past quarter century in some 70 mass shootings in U.S., the shooters got more than 75 per cent of the guns used in the killings legally.

I am saddened by the weak-kneed response to this legislation from William McRaven, chancellor of the University of Texas System, who said that although the approved bill is not what the UT system wanted, he respects the legislature’s decision. And he continued, “I pledge to our students, faculty, staff, patients and their families and to all those who may visit a UT institution that, as UT System leaders, we will do everything in our power to maintain safe and secure campuses.”

Everything in your power?

Just keep the guns out of my classroom.

 

 

 

 

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