Packing Heat, Deep In the Heart of Texas University

TODAY WAS THE FIRST DAY of classes at the University of Texas at Austen, and somewhat surrealistically, the first day during which it is legal to carry firearms on campus. Fifty thousand undergrads, ranging in age from eighteen to twenty, potentially armed. Remind me not to appear on campus wearing cardinal red, with a hog on my hat, and a t shirt reading" Go Razorbacks". Such behavior would be unsafe under the best of circumstances, and decidedly unsafe under current circumstances, which, you sense, are not the best. Or, maybe it is. Maybe the best idea is to give guns to recent high school graduates in large numbers, and then allow the usual start of the semester pledge parties, the usual hormones raging. Its a capital idea, according to conservatives, of which the Lone Star State is plum full. You know the type: gun totin', Bible banging free marketeers, your garden variety Jesus, guns, and money TEA Party model. these folks remember the Alamo, vividly, hate the federal government, and long for the days of the independent Republic of Texas, the finest of six flags, seemingly forgetting that during these glory days, 1836-1845, the Texas economy fell flat on its face, too insular, and too small to survive without the rest of the U.S. to offer reinforcement. Yet, there is hope, there is more to Austen that reactionary right wing culture. The city of over a million inhabitants is shot through and through with free thinking, radical left wingers, like any other college town, a veritable oasis of intellect amid a vast wasteland of extreme right wing anger. to that end, the gun culture does not go unopposed. There are, and will continue to be, anti-gun protests all over campus, an expression of bleeding heart liberals fearing for their own bleeding hearts. It may even eventuate that surprisingly few students actually end up carrying, and that those who do do so only for fear of those who do. Is it conceal carry, or open carry? Amid the ambient haze of sulfuric smoke, one forgets. Let us briefly consider each case, and its probably consequences. In a conceal carry scenario, everyone wonders, and better safe than sorry, tends to assume that everyone else is packing heat, but no one knows for sure abut anybody else. Uncertainty festers in the back of the troubled mind, and people tend towards keeping a discreet distance, and exuding a showy, if feigned courtesy to all strangers. A sullen, self conscious miasma pervades campus culture. Those of a certain age will recall that horrible day in 1966, when the victim of a brain tumor opened fire from atop the Texas Tower, killing more than a dozen innocents. the theory is that a well armed ad hoc citizen militia would put a stop to this sort of nonsense with a hail of virtuous bullets, but which comes first, the pissed off test flunker with a sudden uncontrollable urge to do random harm, or the well regulated heat packing student body? That is the question. If we are very lucky, we'll never know the answer. In the open carry scenario, either you're packing or not, and everybody knows what's what, straight up. Everyone can decide, adequately informed, who to avoid, and with which gang to hang, depending of course on one's attitude towards a well armed citizenry, faith in fundamental human nature, and willingness to take a chance. Gradually a new caste system emerges, utterly independent of the usual determining factors like race, creed, and socio-economic status, based instead on haves and have nots, cliques forming around the armed and the unarmed. the distinction between liberals and conservatives come into sharper focus. conservatives go heels, liberals stand naked of personal protection. liberals still greatly out number conservatives, as they tend to on any college campus, but for how long? They're dropping like flies, unprotected, shot through...........THE ISSUE IS NOT WHETHER WE AGREE, BUT WHETHER WE COMMUNICATE. PLEASE SHARE THIS WEBSITE!