Request to Ban Texas Campus Carry Law Denied

In the latest in the University of Texas campus carry ban, a federal judge denied three University of Texas professors’ request to deny students their right to carry firearms into classrooms. The Austin-based UT professors failed in their attempt to have the ban put in place before the fall semester begins.

According to Bearing Arms, the professors filed a lawsuit against the University of Texas at Austin and the State of Texas on the grounds that campus carry restricted their first amendment rights or “academic freedom.”

Campus carry allows licensed students to legally carry concealed handguns in most public university buildings. Private colleges and universities have the choice of opting out of the law.

Judge Lee Yaekel denied the professors’ request “because Plaintiffs at this time have failed to establish a substantial likelihood of ultimate success on the merits of their asserted claims, their request for immediate relief must fail. The court therefore need not and does not reach the remaining requirements for granting a preliminary injunction.”

The Texas attorney general and the university subsequently asked that the case be dismissed.

Renea Hicks, the UT professors’ attorney, responded to the judge’s decision by saying that more facts need to be gathered for trial and remarked that hopefully “things go smoothly on campus in the meantime. Sometimes, public policies are so terrible and extreme that it takes the law and courts a little while to catch up.”

According to the Dallas Morning News, there were estimations by Texas schools that the new campus carry law would cost them $15 million, but it’s only cost $1 million so far. Public universities and colleges believed more would be spent on “bulked-up police forces, gun safes and other security boosts” as a means of implementing the law. The biggest expenditure has been for signs that provide notice of select gun-free zones and that’s only come to a few thousand dollars.

Moreover, there were assumptions made that disruptions on campuses might unfold, but that hasn’t been an issue.

Another reason expenses associated with the Texas campus carry law are less than expected may have to do with the number of students who’re likely to carry. There are fewer due to the age limit being 21 years of age in order to acquire a carry license. UT-Austin has determined that fewer than 1 percent of its 51,000 students have licenses to carry.