A federal district court judge in Texas upheld a state law allowing residents to carry concealed handguns on university campuses on July 7, after three University of Texas at Austin professors sought to ban guns from their classrooms.

The plaintiffs, Professors Jennifer Glass, Lisa Moore, and Mia Carter, argued that “classroom discussion will be narrowed, truncated, cut back, cut off” if guns are allowed in classrooms. The defendants, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, UT-Austin President Gregory Fenves, and the university’s Board of Regents, defended the law’s implementation at UT-Austin.

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel said the plaintiffs had not demonstrated that they had suffered an “injury in fact” and had not established that there was a “causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of” that could be traced to the defendants.

In other words, the plaintiffs failed to show beyond speculation that they would be harmed by the concealed carry of handguns, or that concealed carry could be connected to having a “chilling effect” on classroom discussions. Therefore, Yeakel ruled that the “plaintiffs present no concrete evidence to substantiate their fears” and that they did not have standing to sue the defendants.

“The court’s ruling today is the correct outcome,” Paxton said in a statement. “The fact that a small group of professors dislike a law and speculate about a ‘chilling effect’ is hardly a valid basis to set the law aside.”

Texas passed a law in 2015 allowing licensed concealed handgun owners who are at least 21 years old to carry a concealed handgun on campus. The law prohibits institutions from creating rules that restrict gun owners’ right to carry a concealed handgun on campus, except for rules pertaining to the storage of handguns in dorms and residence halls.

The controversial bill was met with opposition from gun control advocates, but gun rights supporters won out in the end when Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill into law in June 2015. Still, the fight against the “campus carry” law continued. UT-Austin students protested the law in August 2016 by organizing a “Cocks Not Glocks” demonstration during which they handed out more than 4,500 donated dildos, according to the Texas Tribune.

“We want these dildos on backpacks as long as there are concealed handguns in backpacks,” UT-Austin student Ana López, who helped organized the protest, told the Texas Tribune at the time.

Under UT policies, the concealed carry of handguns is permitted on campus and in university buildings, but is prohibited in all on-campus residence halls, with some exceptions: staff members and visiting family members may carry a concealed handgun, and concealed carry of handguns is permitted in common areas. Unless the plaintiffs appeal the ruling, concealed carry will remain at UT-Austin and other Texas universities.

Marcus Dieterle

Marcus is an editorial intern at Law Street. He is a rising senior at Towson University where he is double majoring in mass communication (with a concentration in journalism and new media) and political science. When he isn’t in the newsroom, you can probably find him reading on the train, practicing his Portuguese, or eating too much pasta. Contact Marcus at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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If you’ve ever been at a college football game and thought, “Man this football game is fun, but it would be even more fun if some people in this stadium were packing heat!” then you probably were not very happy with the Arkansas Senate yesterday.

After a good dose of public outrage and some lawmakers speaking out about its dangers, a new Arkansas concealed carry expansion measure has now been watered down by an exemption passed by a 22-10 vote in the Senate. The exemption removes college sports events from the expansion.

Signed into law by Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson on Wednesday, the new measure would have allowed anyone with a concealed handgun license and eight hours of active shooter training to conceal carry in a publicly-owned building like a state college campus or the state capitol. Private establishments like bars and places of worship would also be included, although those establishments still have the right to prohibit guns from their premises. News of this measure expanding gun rights to college sports venues angered and alarmed many, leading the Senate to pass the exemption for college sports venues less than a day after the law was passed.

Among those who were confused by the very logic of the law was University of Arkansas defensive back Kevin Richardson II:

I’m curious as to why… https://t.co/Ynpo3lGUeL

— Kevin Richardson II (@K_Rich30) March 23, 2017

Speaking to USA Today Sports, Democratic Rep. Greg Leading, who represents the district that includes one of the University of Arkansas campuses, said “Most concealed-carry permit holders are responsible people. That said, accidents happen. People like to have a good time before, during and after football games in the South. People drink. People get emotional. If you’re not allowed to bring an umbrella into a stadium, why should you be allowed to introduce guns into the equation?” To add to Rep. Leading’s point, outside food is prohibited from most stadiums, and, on the very same day the new measure was approved, the SEC implemented a league-wide “clear bag policy” that encourages fans to bring only clear and smaller bags to SEC football games.

As the AP points out, the state of Arkansas is no stranger to supporting and expanding gun rights. In 2013, the state passed a law that allowed faculty and staff to carry concealed weapons on college campuses, given that those schools agreed to allow guns on campus, which none of them ended up doing. Governor Hutchinson is also, as the AP points out, a former chair of a National Rifle Association task force whose mission was to push for armed faculty at Arkansas public schools in response to the Newtown shooting. That shooting happened, of course, in Connecticut–over a thousand miles away from Arkansas.

This exemption is expected to pass in the Arkansas House floor sometime within the next week.

This Arkansas law comes at a time where multiple states with Republican governors are moving to pass some version of concealed carry expansion. This week, North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum signed into law a bill that institutes Constitutional Carry throughout the state and Ohio’s new gun laws that allow for people to carry a concealed weapon into places like day care facilities and non-secure areas of airports went into effect.

Austin Elias-De Jesus

Austin is an editorial intern at Law Street Media. He is a junior at The George Washington University majoring in Political Communication. You can usually find him reading somewhere. If you can’t find him reading, he’s probably taking a walk. Contact Austin at Staff@Lawstreetmedia.com.

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Last Sunday, an armed citizen named Patrick Ewing shot and injured a man who had drawn his weapon and fired at civilians. The story did not get a lot of media attention, but the coverage it did receive sensationalized the event, focusing on Ewing’s concealed carry permit. Some gun rights activists and conservative news sources dramatized and championed the what happened as proof of the benefit of concealed carry permits. Unfortunately, this event, like certain other gun-related incidents, was given disproportionate attention and used to defend simplistic approaches to gun laws.

According to police, 62-year-old Thomas McCary was engaged in an argument with a woman when Patrick Ewing, her brother, approached to check on the situation. McCary then pulled out a .38-caliber handgun and fired three shots. Ewing then drew his own weapon and fired three shots back, hitting McCary once in the leg. After retreating into his house and grabbing another gun, McCary returned and began shooting at the woman he was arguing with, as well as her one-year old son and a third man. Ewing fired more rounds at McCary in order to divert his attention while the others retreated into their home.

While Ewing’s actions almost certainly saved lives, arguing that more people should carry guns in public is far too simplistic. Neither shooter proved very effective with their weapon, with Ewing only hitting McCary once in the leg. People often imagine that licensed gun carriers can effectively defend themselves and the people around them, but the reality is that such accuracy is difficult and guns are not often used in self-defense. The use of weapons in dangerous situations, even by well-meaning citizens, is complex and potentially dangerous.

This exaggerated emphasis on a single event is also often true of those who support stronger gun control laws. Events such as the recent theater shooting in Louisiana have prompted politicians to again talk about the issue of gun control–a recurring response to mass shootings. Despite the well-intentioned rhetoric, these calls to action by politicians also rarely result in substantive change. When such events are no longer in the headlines, politicians are content with moving on to other issues. While mass shootings invoke media attention, they account for less than one percent of gun murders, meaning these events may not be the best basis to determine gun policy.

Sadly, most Americans are desensitized to mass shootings and the gun control rhetoric that follows. Instances of heroic gun-toting civilians are not very common, which is why these stories can resonate so strongly, but also why they should not be used as evidence of the norm. For issues like guns and gun violence, it is important to rely on facts instead of anecdotal evidence.

There is evidence on both sides of the debate over the relationship between gun ownership and crime. Some evidence suggests that increased access to guns, especially through concealed carry permits, reduces gun violence. These studies conclude that high gun ownership leads to decreases in crime and that gun laws have been ineffective at stopping criminals from getting access to guns. On the other hand, there is evidence that counters these conclusions. The correlation between gun ownership rates and gun deaths in the United States, as well as large loopholes in current gun laws, point to the need for stricter gun control. Also, one NIH study found that guns being used in self-defense are not very common, with only one instance of self-defense per seven assaults, eleven suicide attempts, and four accidents involving guns.

The fact of the matter is this: the jury is out on the effect of gun ownership on gun violence. It also important to remember that although it is certainly an important factor, the prevalence of gun ownership is not the only issue to consider. Mental health treatment, increased gun training, and community-based violence prevention initiatives are all important avenues to explore. These solutions, which take a more comprehensive approach to the issue of gun violence, are more likely to be effective than gun restrictions alone.

Too often, the activists and biased media–on either side of the issue–can sensationalize certain events. And while blaming media coverage for motivating mass shooters is not supported by data, there is something to be said for the media’s effect on the general public. Despite dramatic decreases in crime over the past few decades, the public’s perception of crime is that it is either increasing or stagnant. This is at least partially due to the sensationalization of crime, as well as new media’s ability to cover more stories. There are, however, responsible sources that try to look at the whole picture when it comes to the debate over gun control and it is crucial for citizens to do their best to remain properly informed. In order to foster a productive conversation about gun control, the discussion must be driven by facts, instead of the sensationalized events that fit into each side’s rhetoric.

Maurin Mwombela

Maurin Mwombela is a member of the University of Pennsylvania class of 2017 and was a Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer 2015. He now blogs for Law Street, focusing on politics. Contact Maurin at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Hey folks! How many of you are big video game players?

Probably a decent number of you. I, personally, don’t really get the whole video game thing, mainly because I didn’t grow up with them. My parents had really strong opinions about what kinds of activities made children’s “brains melt out of their ears.” Melodramatic, Mom.

But! I’m in the minority here. You guys totally like to relax with a cold beer and a few hours of Madden, am I right?

Yeah I am.

So! If you know anything about video games, you probably — hopefully — know about how insanely sexist the industry is. Really, it’s depressing.

Only about 21 percent of video game developers are women. Giant Bomb, the largest online video game database, exclusively employs white, straight men. And the characters in video games? They’re rarely, if ever, women — and when they are, they tend to be hypersexualized sidekicks with insane amounts of T&A.

On every level, from who designs the video games, to who distributes them, to who’s featured in them, the video game world sends one message loud and clear.

This is a place for men.

But the thing is, it’s not. Forty-eight percent of video game players are women. That’s nearly half. The world of video games is absolutely a place where women are hanging out, passing time, and spending money. Yet they’re almost unilaterally shut out of every aspect of the gaming world that reaches beyond their personal playing console.

Enter women like Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu. A feminist cultural critic and a video game developer, respectively, these women are two among a community of feminist gaming critics. They speak out against the sexism and misogyny that runs rampant in the video game industry, and on Wu’s part, she develops games that feature corporeally realistic and empowered female characters.

As a result, they both receive violent, sexualized death threats almost constantly. Because obviously, advocating for the video game industry not to be a weird club of circle-jerking white dudes is something that merits murder, right?

Apparently so. This week, those depressingly routine threats of violence reached such a fever pitch that Sarkeesian was forced to cancel a speaking engagement at Utah State University, and Wu was driven from her personal home.

What happened, exactly? We’ll start with Sarkeesian. She was scheduled to give a speech at Utah State University on Tuesday, but the day before, university administrators received an email threatening that a gun massacre would happen if they allowed the event to go on.

Now, keep in mind that bomb threats are par for the course when it comes to Sarkeesian’s speaking engagements. So she’s used to fearing for her life every time she steps out in public, as are the folks who choose to book her to speak at their establishments.

But this time was different. The dude who made this threat sent it out under a pseudonym referencing Marc Lépine, the Montréal shooter who killed 14 women and himself back in 1989. His email reads like something straight out of Elliot Rodger’s diary. And, most importantly, because of the concealed-carry laws in Utah, the folks at USU refused to prevent anyone from bringing a firearm into the event.

So, faced with the prospect of giving a speech to a crowded room full of concealed guns — one of which might be attached to the deranged misogynist who threatened to make sure that all the life-ruining feminists on campus were killed (he literally said that) — Sarkeesian made the obvious decision.

She canceled the event. The lack of security USU was offering left her with no other real choices.

She did.

And this Marc Lépine character isn’t alone. He’s part of a vast community called #GamerGate, which is essentially an online club of gamer boys who haven’t learned yet that girls don’t have cooties. But they aren’t little boys; they’re grown-ass men. And that means that they aren’t just taunting the girls on the playground; they’re threatening to rape and murder all the women in the gaming community who dare open their mouths.

This week, #GamerGate didn’t stop with Sarkeesian. They also attacked feminist game developer Brianna Wu. Frustrated by the boys’ club’s temper tantrums, Wu tweeted a meme poking fun at them.

This was just sent to me, a new meme called Oppressed Gamergater. Love it. http://t.co/Sp9sQPgLxQ pic.twitter.com/6UEWRgPGcn

— Imperator Brianna Wu (@Spacekatgal) October 9, 2014

The response?

The police just came by. Husband and I are going somewhere safe. Remember, #gamergate isn't about attacking women. pic.twitter.com/ZU6oEVxMGL

— Imperator Brianna Wu (@Spacekatgal) October 11, 2014

#GamerGate started battering Wu with crazy-train subtweets, threatening to anally rape her until she bled, castrate her husband and choke her to death with his severed penis, and murder all of her future children. Because they were going to grow up to be feminists anyway, so clearly that means they should die, right?

After the threatening Twitter creeps revealed her personal address, Wu was forced to leave her home.

Folks, this shit is batshit insane. The gaming world isn’t the only place where women — and feminist women, specifically — are targeted with a violence and vitriol that’s truly disturbing. Sexism is rampant in the tech industry in general. Just take a look at the wildly sexist (albeit nonviolent) comment Microsoft’s CEO made last week about closing the income gap.

But this week’s events have put the gaming community’s particular brand of misogyny in the spotlight. It’s seriously time this crap stopped.

The men of #GamerGate are threatening to kill women like Sarkeesian and Wu simply because they dare to speak and to work within their universe. They play video games. They make video games. They ask that video game companies hire more female developers and design games with more realistic and empowered female characters.

These are reasonable, nonviolent, nonthreatening requests. They’re only asking for women to be more positively represented in the gaming world.

And yet, somehow, that’s a goal that merits a sexually violent, vengeful death.

This shit’s unacceptable. People of the world — especially you, men of #GamerGate — stop treating the women in your worlds with violence and aggression. We have every right to be here and to demand respect. And if you can’t handle that, we’re kindly asking you to GTFO.

Hannah R. Winsten

Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The nation’s capital is not having a good summer.

Just weeks after Congress tried to overturn a few of D.C.’s laws, a U.S. District Court judge has ruled that the city’s ban on carrying handguns in public is unconstitutional.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because this is the second time that a court has overturned a D.C. gun law in the past six years. The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the district’s 32-year-old ban on private handgun ownership was unconstitutional in the landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller. This was the first time that the Supreme Court had ever stated that the Second Amendment guaranteed gun ownership for every American. For D.C., it meant the city had to rewrite their gun laws.

These new laws allowed residents to keep registered handguns in their home and required gun owners to obtain a permit before carrying in public. However, the city had a policy of refusing to issue any of these permits. This amounted to a de facto ban on handguns in public. Authors of the law argued that D.C.’s status as the nation’s capital gave it reason enough to ban handguns, since they would put the many federal buildings, government officials, and memorials at risk. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier put it this way at a hearing in January:

The District of Columbia, as the seat of the Federal government, with its multitude of critical official and symbolic buildings, monuments, and events, and high-profile public officials traversing the streets every day, is a city filled with ‘sensitive’ places. Our laws should reflect that reality.

This reasoning did not fly with Senior District Court Judge Frederick J. Scullin Jr. Heller and a similar ruling in Chicago gave Scullin enough precedent to strike down the ban. Chicago attempted to ban the sale of firearms within city limits. U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang found this law to be unconstitutional. Chang was not convinced that banning the sale of firearms would reduce gun violence.

What’s next?

D.C. will appeal this ruling, and they have reason to be confident. In 2012, a U.S. District Court struck down a Maryland law which only issued carry permits to individuals who could provide a “good and substantial reason” for carrying a firearm outside of the home. The Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned this ruling one year later. This provides an important precedent for proponents of the D.C. ban. There are reasonable restrictions that can be placed on an American’s right to carry a firearm in public. Even Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said as much in his majority opinion in Heller:

The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

While the court ruled in 2008 that citizens are allowed to own firearms, it added that restrictions on such ownership were not unconstitutional. Specifically, Scalia’s majority opinion argued that “the carrying of firearms in sensitive places” can be forbidden. It might be a stretch to claim that the entire District of Columbia is a “sensitive place,” but at least D.C. has a leg to stand on.

In the meantime, how will this ruling impact D.C. residents?

The D.C. Attorney General has requested a stay, but one has not yet been granted. This means that, for now, it is legal to carry a handgun in the nation’s capital. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier has instructed officers to not arrest anyone holding a registered handgun. Those visiting D.C. who have a carry permit from another state will also be allowed to carry their handgun.

As frustrating and frightening as it is to see a judge allow any Joe Schmo to carry a gun in a city that is home to so many important people and high-profile targets, the city should have seen this coming, especially in the wake of Heller. To respond to a court’s rejection of your strict gun ban with another strict gun ban is foolish, and claiming that an entire city is a “sensitive place” is laughable. Yes, many parts of D.C. are home to federal buildings, but there are large areas of D.C. that look like any other city. There are shopping centers, grocery stores, apartment complexes, and everything else that makes a city a city. There are also threats to the safety of the average citizen, and D.C. residents have the constitutional right to defend themselves from those threats with a gun.

For the safety of D.C. residents, Mayor Vincent Gray and the city council need to approve new and sensible gun laws that balance the need to protect our government officials with the right of all D.C. residents to defend themselves. Banning or allowing guns everywhere in the city are not viable options.

—

Eric Essagof (@ericmessagof) is a student at The George Washington University majoring in Political Science. He writes about how decisions made in DC impact the rest of the country. He is a Twitter addict, hip-hop fan, and intramural sports referee in his spare time. Contact Eric at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Robert Nelson via Flickr]

Eric Essagof

Eric Essagof attended The George Washington University majoring in Political Science. He writes about how decisions made in DC impact the rest of the country. He is a Twitter addict, hip-hop fan, and intramural sports referee in his spare time. Contact Eric at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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