On every campus across the state of Texas there are professors, administrators and students who have been watching the status of House Bill 937, or the “campus carry” bill.

For some, it means the ability to legally and efficiently defend their person at a place they spend a great deal of their time.

To others, it may mean safety even if they choose to not to carry themselves. Still, others feel it means that they now work or study in a more dangerous environment.

Regardless of your personal beliefs on guns — and in spite of all of the hyperboling and media hype — we need to remember that this bill does not legalize hotheaded 18-year-olds carrying guns into school. It does not legalize brandishing weapons of any sort. It does not do anything other than allow

Concealed Handgun License holders to carry their firearm concealed like they do every other place that we feel perfectly safe.

Until now, these guns have simply been locked in vehicles, left at home, or illegally carried on campus anyway. The only people that would be able to carry a firearm are at least 21-years-old, have passed background checks, waited months and made a conscious decision to carry a firearm for their protection.

The Texas Department of Public Safety’s annual CHL Conviction Rates Reports shows that these are some of the most law abiding people in the state. Out of the over 50,000 criminal convictions reported in Texas in 2013, only 158 were committed by CHL Holders. CHL Holders only have a 0.3106 percent conviction rate.

Fortunately, whether this bill passes or fails, there is nothing to be afraid of. In the midst of the most recent demands for new gun control measures, President Obama’s administration directed the Center for Disease Control and Prevention to develop a research plan to study all aspects of gun violence.

The panel created a study and presented its plan ‘Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence’. This report concluded that almost every index of crime and gun crime have been improving for years, that defensive uses of guns are commonplace, that the mass shootings we’re all afraid of are statistically insignificant and are not more commonplace, they dismissed the notion that victims being armed made situations worse and they found that 61 percent of gun deaths are suicides.

Most notably, the report could not conclude whether or not there was any correlation between gun violence and gun control measures instead stating that more research is required in this area before a position could be assumed.

The murder rate in the U.S. in 2013 — the last year that the FBI has complete data available in its Uniform Crime Report — was 4.5 per 100,000 people. The last time it was even close to being that low was 4.6 per 100,000 in 1962 and 1963. The murder rate is literally half of what it was through the 1980s and first half of the 1990s.

So instead of getting upset about things that have proven time and time again to not impact our safety negatively, let’s keep working towards addressing the things that have been proven to cause not only violence, but are at the root of so many other problems we face such as mental health, poverty and education.

We can start by caring about our own education, our own jobs and the jobs available in our communities, encouraging friends who need a little help to seek out that help.

But as someone who cares passionately about so many other more pressing issues, I feel safe saying that discouraging or criminalizing freedom, is the surest way to drive us apart at a time when the community is more important than ever.