public transit

Texas lawmakers are expected this week to send along legislation for a full Senate vote that would permit students to carry concealed handguns on the state's college campuses. According to this Huffington Post article, Texas state senators appeared poised on March 22 to send the bill toward a final vote. I wrote about this bill in late February (see Guns at school: Texas bill would allow concealed weapons on campus) and pointed out that many educators oppose such legislation:

University of Texas President William Powers has opposed concealed handguns on campus, saying the mix of students, guns and campus parties is too volatile.

This bill would make Texas the second state after Utah to allow the carrying of concealed weapons on public post-secondary campuses. The bill would grant private universities discretion as to whether they allow guns on campus, but Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat, has said he will try to amend the legislation to give public university officials the same choice, according to the article.

Something I hadn't picked up from previous discussions about this legislation was that applicants for a Texas concealed handgun license must be 21 years of age, which means that many students aren't eligible. Personally, I think an age restriction is a good thing considering how many drunken brawls I've witnessed involving college-age folks (who, by the way, aren't legally allowed to be consuming alcohol in the first place).

What do you think? Would college campuses be safer if students were allowed to carry concealed weapons?

I recently blogged about legislation headed to the Oklahoma House that would allow students and faculty to carry concealed weapons on university and college campuses. Not long before that, I wrote about similar legislation coming out of Texas.

Apparently, there are more than a dozen states considering legislation that would allow professors and students to bring loaded guns into their classrooms, according to this article from CNN.

The article is written by Amitai Etzioni, a sociologist and professor of international relations at George Washington University and the author of several books, including "Security First" and "New Common Ground."

He said there is an inherent problem with this kind of approach to guns:
The drafters of these bills seem to have an image of peaceful students, bent over their books, suddenly attacked by gunslingers who materialize from nowhere. They ignore that students can and do shoot people on campus.

He argues that there aren't (and probably won't ever be) measures to ensure that mentally unstable people don't have access to guns:

And if it were ever created, I expect the National Rifle Association and various state legislatures would strenuously oppose submitting millions of students and professors, or anyone else, to such a test before they could purchase a firearm.

And there's also the issue of allowing students, specifically, to carry weapons. I may be generalizing here, but I'm pretty sure college students tend to drink more than other age groups, and, it's my fair opinion that alcohol and guns just don't mix (although don't get me wrong, I love beer camp, I mean, deer camp just as much as the next New Englander). So, I think he has a good point, the student body is a typically volatile group of people:

Worse, long before anyone storms into a classroom, some students will use their guns -- when their anger boils over, when they have one drink too many or their girlfriend makes out with someone else -- to shoot someone.

His argument is to make guns less accessible, not more. After all, he writes: "Nobody can kill 16 people from a clock tower with a knife."

What do you think? Would allowing students to carry guns make campuses more or less safe? What about campus security? Would it be more difficult to secure a campus knowing students may be carrying weapons?

In less than two weeks, Amtrak will start allowing passengers to check unloaded firearms inside their bags, lifting a ban that was in put in place after Sept. 11, 2001.

All rifles, shotguns, handguns and pistols aboard must be locked in a hard-sided container and travelers must have a reservation for the weapon at least 24 hours before a departure, according to this article. The option to check bags does not exist at all stations and firearms can only be carried on to trains that offer it. The ban of firearms on trains was lifted last December and goes in to affect December 15th.

I wrote an article about an amendment that would permit passengers to check firearms back in September 2009 and in that piece one of the major concerns was that Amtrak didn't have the infrastructure in place to comply with such legislation:

“Unlike the airline industry, Amtrak has no system in place for a uniform system of screening for weapons or exact regulations regarding firearms,” wrote Thomas Carper, chairman of the board for Amtrak. “At Amtrak, baggage cars may be more easily accessed by a passenger or third party at any stop along the train route. Amtrak trains have no separate and secure cargo as airplanes do and our baggage cars are not alarmed.”

Well, apparently Amtrak has the systems it needs now:
"We believe we have taken the necessary steps-revised reservation system, modified baggage cars and stations to secure the firearms, and trained employees- to ensure firearms can safely and securely travel in checked baggage," said Amtrak Spokesman, Steve Kulm.

In a recent USA Today article, Kulm said that the company spent $2 million on staff training, modifying the reservation system and installing secure storage in 142 baggage cars to accommodate the guns.

As you might recall, the Department of Homeland Security has made a big push to boost security measures in the nation's public transit arena because it considers public transportation to be highly vulnerable to terrorism.

While there are certainly concerns about having adequate measures in place to secure these firearms, it does seem reasonable that people should be able to transport firearms on trains just like on airplanes. What do you think? Does this new rule pose a security threat to passengers?