Frank Bruni: Guns, Campuses and Madness

[LiberalArkie]

Austin, Tex. — I’M not sure if this meets the exact definition of irony, but it definitely meets the exact definition of insanity:

Across the country, there’s so much concern for college students’ emotional safety that some schools add “trigger warnings” to novels and other texts. But in Texas, there’s so little concern for college students’ physical safety that concealed firearms will be permitted in classrooms at public universities like the state flagship here.

This wasn’t the doing or desire of administrators and faculty at the University of Texas — most of whom, it seems, are horrified — but of conservative Texas lawmakers on a tireless mission to loosen gun restrictions whenever, however and wherever they can.

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It gets better, by which I mean more surreal: The law, which was passed four months ago, will take effect on Aug. 1, 2016. That’s 50 years to the day since one of the first and most infamous mass shootings at an American school, the beginning of a bloody tape loop. It happened right here, at the University of Texas at Austin, where an engineering student climbed to the top of the iconic tower in the center of campus and, for an agonizing hour and a half, sprayed the surrounding area with bullets, killing 14 people and injuring more than 30.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-guns-campuses-and-madness.html?_r=0