Throwback: “Campus Carry: Conundrum For Cops”

Active Shooter Exercise (Photo credit: North Carolina National Guard)

The renewed lunacy discussion about campus carry in Texas brought to mind this little ditty from nearly two years ago. I was heaped with praise from friends and readers in law enforcement and lambasted as an idiot from others. This is a serious issue that requires serious discussion, not knee-jerk ‘Murica bravado.

Check out this throwback:

Republicans in the Texas Legislature and legislative bodies throughout the country are aggressively pursuing so-called “campus carry”. Even vaunted institutions of reasonable gun policy like “Ammoland”  are calling for campus carry to be added to the call for special session of the Texas Legislature. Some backers of campus carry see it from an egocentric perspective: “If there was a shooter I would get my Jason Bourne on, whip out my 9 with laser sights and hollow points, and save the day”. (Yeah, right.)  Some see it as some homage to the 2nd Amendment (which has absolutely zero to do with this issue). And, others seem to think it makes them more of a man or more of a patriot to back all things that equal more guns, also known as ‘Merica.

The  arguments against campus carry center on the alcohol-fueled culture of college, the volatility of relationships and emotions among young people, the general irresponsibility of college kids, and what it says about our values if we think the best way to secure college campuses is a bunch of 21 year-old kids with zero law enforcement training. But, the only perspective that should matter in this debate is that of law enforcement who would be the first on the scene in what they refer to as an “active shooter” situation.

Regardless of your perceptions on guns, background checks, assault weapons, or the 2nd amendment, consider yourself as a first responder arriving on a campus where there is a report of a person with a gun. You arrive on the scene…adrenaline pumping. You draw your weapon…scanning your field of vision for a person with a gun. Without campus carry, your job is fairly direct: find guy with gun, shoot guy with gun. Under campus carry your job is made extraordinarily more difficult. Rather than finding the guy with the gun, you must now find the bad guy with the gun. Everyone you see with a gun is potentially a bad guy. You will not be able to take immediate action because you will be forced to stop, disarm, detain, and evaluate every person you see with a gun to determine if they, in fact, are the bad guy.

While precious moments tick past as you cuff and frisk Clint the custodian and Gloria grad assistant, how many shots can the bad guy get off? Adam Lanza killed 20 six and seven year-old babies by firing 1 bullet every 2 seconds in Sandy Hook. So while you disarm World Lit teachers and frat rats, a mad man and his high capacity magazine are free to unleash carnage and death on coeds at the terrorizing rate of 1 bullet every 2 seconds. Say you actually see one person shoot another, is the apparent assailant actually the vigilante saving the day? You cannot know.  In a moment where a first responder needs to  have a degree of certainty about the scene he or she is witnessing,  there is none.

Campus carry is a misguided policy, a solution in search of a problem and a political gimmick for the ‘Merica crowd.  It multiplies the chaos of an active shooter crisis by many times, it takes away the ability of first responders to take quick and decisive action, and it is a poor substitute for Texas being unwilling to have sensible gun laws and adequate campus security. As a general rule, guns on college campuses in Texas is not an issue.

This proposal is a cheap, unnecessary political stunt. Of all the bad policy enacted by Perry & Friends, this might well be the worst (should it be added to the call)…and that is saying something.

Related articles

• Bill allowing concealed handguns on college campuses draws blanks (star-telegram.com)
• Texas state legislature moves toward allowing concealed carry on college campuses (redalertpolitics.com)
• Senator declares campus carry bill ‘dead’ (mysanantonio.com)
• USU police train to take down active shooter (ksl.com)

Texas Republicans Enter The First Stage Of Grief: Denial

If you even remotely follow Texas politics, by now you have heard of Battleground Texas (@BGTX)–the latest incarnation of “we’ve finally figured out how to turn Texas blue, Inc.”.  If so, you have almost certainly heard the protestations by Texas Republicans great and small about this quixotic endeavor and how unlikely and unrealistic BGTX’s goal is.  This is what the Kubler-Ross Model refers to as the “First Stage of Grief”: Denial.

 

Governor Rick Perry went on record calling it “…the biggest pipe dream I have ever heard“, but the most salient and detailed…albeit riddled with false assumptions and a blind eye towards history…was proffered by Austin-based Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak (@MattMackowiak) in a counterpoint op-ed to the San Antonio Express-News entitled “Dream on, Texas red for a long time“.

 

I happen to respect Matt and believe him to be a bright guy, but found his piece to be riddled with broad, disputable assumptions, along with a healthy dose of wishful thinking. Thus, my counter-counterpoint.

 

We will set aside for a blog post later this week some of the myriad bold assertions and assumptions he makes concerning the origins of BGTX (unemployed operatives building a vehicle for San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro (@JulianCastroTX), the “political future” of Texas (growing suburban counties), the Democrats’ lack of a bench (no “first-tier candidate for statewide office”), and the security of the House and Senate for Texas Republicans, and the measure of success for former Houston Mayor Bill White’s campaign.  For now, let us simply debunk the false premise that BGTX cannot be effective in making Texas competitive in two, four, or six years.

 

Matt asserts that BGTX “will do little to change Texas politically in the near term”. I suppose that, to some degree, it depends on what one considers “near term” as well as if the BGTX goal is actually to “change Texas politically” in the 2014-2016 timeframe Matt levels as his measure of “near term”.  

 

For those of us who were here for the decimation of the TDP and the subsequent false starts, GOTV schemes, wishing upon a demographic star, and bad decisions that followed for nearly twenty years, I think the overwhelming majority are satisfied that the goal of BGTX is to change the culture of our party and begin the years-long process to get back to Blue.  From the conversations I have had with Democratic operatives and party officials around the state, a 2014-2016 timeframe for success is one that has been imposed upon us, rather than promulgated from within.

 

Having said that, I certainly expect BGTX to be effective immediately (as in 2014).   No, “effective” in my book does not necessarily mean winning statewide races or flipping a chamber.  To me effective means engaging grassroots Democrats across the state, empowering them with new strategies and a new philosophy, and promising a professional, multi-cycle, multi-million dollar organizing effort, that helps Texas Democrats build a solid foundation.  I fully expect this effectiveness will manifest in 2014 in more than two dozen counties, including all of those Matt references (Harris, Dallas, Bexar, Travis, El Paso, South Texas, Denton, Collin, Fort Bend, Hays, and Williamson).

 

My interpretation of Matt’s well written piece is that he believes Texas Democrats and BGTX need a nuclear weapon-grade effort to swing the political pendulum back to Blue.  Fairly recent Texas history proves that a well-organized, multi-cycle effort can swing the pendulum enough so that the coup de grace may be delivered not with a sword, but with a pencil.

 

One may merely look to the Associated Republican of Texas. Remember those guys?

 

While their website contends that their efforts were set in motion in 1974, campaign finance disclosure forms indicate that they raised no money at all until 1994 (the year former Governor and President George W. Bush first ran).  As a young man first entering Texas politics in that year, I recall the sordid tale as told through the Democratic operative network: a shadowy group of moneyed and motivated Republicans decided that to turn Texas from Blue to Red they needed to run everywhere, raise and spend money outside of the RPT, and build a crescendo to the elections in 2000 where they could take over the House, Senate, and gain control of the Legislative Redistricting Board so that they could control the decennial redistricting and decimate the Democrats statewide with a pencil, not a sword.

 

They faithfully executed their plan, almost to the letter.  Former Texas House Speaker Pete Laney’s PAC, “Texas Partnership”, threw a bit of a wrench in that plan, but only for one cycle until former Republican Majority Leader Tom Delay could pump enough money and political muscle in the process to take the House and shove through a mid-decade Congressional redistricting plan that all but killed off the already endangered Texas Blue Dog…with a few strokes of a pencil on the map of Texas.

 

I know that in 1994 no reasonable member of the Democratic establishment thought Texas would turn so solidly Red–certainly not in a four-cycle timeframe.  I would venture a guess that it was thought even less of a possibility in 1984, and a laughable notion in 1974.  For many years Texas Democrats across the board underestimated what a seemingly-parallel structure of organized, smart, well-funded true believers could do.  Certainly we have paid the price for that underestimation and, more importantly, the families of Texas have paid, and paid, and paid.

 

Although it was prior to the 2011 redistricting, it is noteworthy that the Texas Democrats were only one seat away from taking over the Speaker’s gavel in 2009.  Had we embraced the concept of “run everywhere” and better understood data and projections, the control of the House would not have come down to 20 votes for a Democratic candidate no one had ever heard of or offered help to.  The RPT underestimated how competitive a sufficiently motivated Democratic electorate could be; unfortunately, their underestimation was only bested by that of the TDP.  Just as it appears Texas Democrats have learned their lesson(s), it appears Texas Republicans have not.  And, I’m okay with that.

 

Winning is not a singular event…it is a process, as illustrated by the Associated Republicans of Texas.  For Texas Democrats that process begins with having smart professionals on the ground, the generosity of big donors, a battle-tested methodology, and steel resolve to see it through.  

 

The TDP and BGTX can take pride in being wholly underestimated.  The worst case scenario for us would be an outright acknowledgement by Texas Republicans that winter is coming, along with a full-court press to right their ship using policy shifts and self-policing the more extreme elements of their party (which are quickly becoming the mainstream of the RPT).

 

Every day the RPT and its operative/consultant base stays in the denial stage of grief is another day Texas Democrats and BGTX can take the field unchallenged and work unabated.  Should the RPT progress to the acceptance stage, acknowledge that they are at their peak with zero room to grow in their current form, and take aggressive action to stem the tide, then Texas will be in for a battle.

 

For now, we are the only team on the field working to get better.  If we stick to the program, trust in our leaders, and execute the game plan, when we meet the opposition on the field of battle we will win.  It may not be 2014 or 2016, or even 2018, but rest assured: it is coming.

 

There is a clear precedent in recent Texas political history for a four-cycle conversion from one party to another.  Thanks to BGTX, meaningful changes in leadership and function at the TDP, and the Majority’s lurch to the Right of Genghis Khan, Texas Democrats are well on the way to a four-cycle conversion that will deliver a death blow in the 2021 Legislature with a pencil, not a sword.