NYT's Frank Bruni Want to Protect Fragile College-Age Texans From Frightening Gun Thoughts

October 4th, 2015 9:35 PM

For his New York Times column Sunday, Frank Bruni traveled to Austin, Texas, a blue patch of academic liberalism in a red state, to quail in horror at the prospect – a year away – of concealed firearms being permitted in college classrooms at the University of Texas: "Guns, Campuses and Madness." Bruni, a former White House correspondent for the Times, at least found a novel angle to attack gun rights after the killings on a college campus in Oregon, by bizarrely suggesting conservatives want to infiltrate campuses with gun-toters as a way to (metaphorically?) attack liberal colleges.

I’m not sure if this meets the exact definition of irony, but it definitely meets the exact definition of insanity:

Across the country, there’s so much concern for college students’ emotional safety that some schools add “trigger warnings” to novels and other texts. But in Texas, there’s so little concern for college students’ physical safety that concealed firearms will be permitted in classrooms at public universities like the state flagship here.

Notice that Bruni has little problem with "trigger warnings" – the idea that citizens old enough to vote must nevertheless be shielded from the depredations of such traumatic fare as The Great Gatsby and Huckleberry Finn. By the way, there already seems to be plenty of guns on the UT campus, judging from photos on the campus security website.

This wasn’t the doing or desire of administrators and faculty at the University of Texas -- most of whom, it seems, are horrified -- but of conservative Texas lawmakers on a tireless mission to loosen gun restrictions whenever, however and wherever they can.

To be or not to be armed in Shakespeare class? Your choice!

Guns in dorms? Just the ticket for a good night’s sleep!