There’s been much ado and confusion regarding the new law legalizing the open carrying of handguns, and the new law legalizing the concealed carry of guns on college campuses.

Unless someone is breaking the law, you will never see someone other than a law enforcement officer openly carrying a firearm on campus.

Call the HCC police at 713-718-8888 if you see someone who is not an officer carrying a handgun openly on campus. Until campus carry goes into effect for two-year institutions in August 2017, it’s still illegal to carry a gun on any Houston Community College campus. Even when that law goes into effect, it will still not be legal to openly carry.

People carrying guns in Texas is nothing new.

It’s extremely likely that you’ve been in line with people at the grocery store who were armed, you work with people who are armed and you’ve had arguments or minor disputes with people who were armed. You just didn’t know it. They were carrying concealed, and you weren’t in a life or death situation that would have prompted them to take out their handgun.

There’s a lot of groupthink happening at colleges across the state of Texas, and it’s disheartening to see. Universities and colleges are supposedly places where the free exchange of ideas is encouraged, where science and data reign and where prejudice and subjective biases are cast aside to make room for the objective, known truth.

However, at higher institutions across the state, there are resolutions almost unanimously passed by faculty stating that they do not like the law. This is an irrational, silly and childish endorsement of feelings over fact.

“The Faculty of the University of Houston asserts that it cannot carry out its core mission of excellence in education, research and public service where guns are present in educational spaces…weapons designed to end human life have no place in the academic life of the University, except when carried by dully-authorized law officers,” stated a resolution passed by the UH Faculty Senate members in December. They are urging their regents and chancellor to petition the Texas State Legislature “to restore the protected academic space envisioned by the founders of the United States of America.”

There’s an opulent amount of proof from every state in the U.S. demonstrating that those who are licensed to carry guns are far more law abiding than the general populace.

The Texas Department of Public Safety reports that there were 2,094 aggravated assault with a deadly weapon convictions in the state in 2014. How many of those were committed by card-carrying concealed handgun license holders? Only four.

In total, there were 47,413 violent offense convictions in 2014, but only 111 of them were committed by CHL holders. This particular population commits about 0.2 percent of all violent offenses in Texas. Both the open carry and campus carry laws only change how and where concealed handgun license holders can pack heat. Texans must pass a background check and take a state gun-safety course in order to obtain a gun license.

Why are professors frightened of firearms? Often cited is the fear of retaliation from students who are given bad grades. Is it commonplace that students punch professors upon receiving grades? Punching someone is a much less serious offense than shooting someone, and yet it’s almost unheard of.

Are professors forbidden from exercising the same right that’s being extended to their students? No, professors can get a concealed handgun license too.

Texas didn’t return to being the wild west after open carry went into effect on Jan. 1. No one is having pistol duels on main street.

Campus carry will go into effect at four-year institutions like UH in August 2016 and at two-year institutions like HCC in August 2017. The only thing that will change with campus carry is that law-abiding citizens will be able to arm themselves at school. Previously, only law-breakers did that.

See the Texas DPS reports on Concealed Handgun License holders and crime rates here.