Campus Decisions

Under the opinion tab on the Austin American Statesman website I found an article by their editorial board quite fascinating. The article is called Lawmakers need to revisit campus carry opt-out for state colleges. The article centers around the legislators decision to force the lift on gun bans in public universities. The author of this article argues that, “The ultimate decision to have firearms on campus should be left to the leader of each public and private institution.” To support this argument the author talks about the twenty private campuses that have declined to lift their bans on firearms and then uses direct quotes from the president of University of Texas, Gregory L. Fenves to show that he is against the lift as well however, has no choice but to allow it because he simply cannot break the law. The author makes really clear bias and uses direct quotes and facts, which makes the author credible. A point the author makes that really convinces the audience that the college president should be able to decide whether or not to implement this law, is when the author states “No one has a better grasp of the real security needs at specific campuses more so than the leaders of those institutions.” This personally convinced me to support this opinion piece. It made me realize that decisions like these should be left in the hands of the leaders of these universities. It should be up to them to decided if this change is for the better or not. There is simply no one else that would know better than the ones specifically chosen to monitor, and uphold the status of these private and public institutions.