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Texas lawmakers approve campus carry bill

Xinhua, June 1, 2015 Adjust font size:

Despite opposition from university presidents and students, lawmakers at the U.S. state of Texas on Sunday gave the final nod to a bill that allows licensed Texans to carry concealed handguns on public college campuses.

The House of the Lone Star state voted 98-47 for the bill after the Senate passed it on Saturday on a party-line vote, with the Republican lawmakers in favor and their Democratic counterparts against it, according to local TV ABC13.

The bill has now been sent to the desk of Texan Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, who is expected to sign it into law.

If signed, four-year state universities will be expected to draw up implementation plans by August 2016 while community colleges will have one additional year to do that.

The House passed the bill with a caveat that lets college presidents designate gun-free zones where concealed handguns will not be allowed.

The legislation clearly states that college presidents will not be able to fully ban handguns on campuses and the gun-free zones must be reasonable.

Currently, Texas has about 850,000 concealed handgun licenses and the existing state law allows carrying firearms onto university grounds with them.

The new legislation aims to allow those licensed Texans to take their handguns into dorms, classrooms, cafeterias and other public campus buildings.

However, handguns will still be barred in hospitals and bars. All colleges and universities could still ban handguns at sporting events and set rules on how firearms are stored in dormitories.

The legislation's mandates apply only to public colleges and universities in the state, and not to private institutions.

Under the state law, those who want to obtain a concealed-carry license in the state must be 21 years old, and thus many Texan college students will not qualify.

Last Friday, Texan lawmakers also passed a bill to allow the open-carry of handguns by those with licenses for legally holding handguns. Endi