University of Texas School of Architecture dean Frederick Steiner is leaving the university because of the new Campus Carry law that allow students with concealed carry licenses to have a gun with them for self-defense.
The Campus Carry law goes into effect in August. And in weighing how to implement it, UT announced it is exempting dorms from Campus Carry but will allow concealed permit holders to carry guns in classrooms for self-defense. Steiner does not agree with letting concealed carry holders have their guns in classrooms.
According to KVUE, Steiner said, “If I’m reviewing a project and I need to be open and honest with that project, I know someone is carrying a firearm. I don’t know what my reaction would be.” He suggested allowing concealed carry holders to carry in classrooms and certain other areas of campus “forces him to be responsible for administrating a law he doesn’t believe in.”
Steiner observed, “Universities began basically in monasteries as cloisters away from the violence that surrounded them.” He did not mention gun-free universities like Virginia Tech, where 32 unarmed, defenseless persons were killed when Seung-Hui Cho opened fire in a gun-free zone on April 16, 2007. Nor did he mention Cody Cousins’ murder of a fellow teaching assistant who was unarmed and defenseless at Purdue University in January 2014 or the example of Umpqua Community College, where Chris Harper Mercer shot and killed 9 unarmed, defenseless persons in a gun-free zone on October 1, 2015.
And perhaps even more poignant that these 21st century examples is the 1966 shooting on the University of Texas campus where former Marine Charlie Whitman shot “47 people.” According to the Houston Chronicle, Whitman killed 15 and wounded 32 others. But Steiner is leaving the university because students who have gone through a thorough background check and obtained a concealed carry license can now carry a gun for self-defense.
Steiner begins his new position as University of Pennsylvania’s dean of the School of Design on July 1.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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