Real Trigger Warnings

Texas and the Campus-Carry Law

It is highly likely that discussions at colleges and universities about such things as the use of semicolons by Shakespeare will be somewhat muted in Texas after Aug.1, when concealed handguns can be carried on campus. It was recently pointed out in the Chronicle of Highly Sensitive Education that some suggestions were made at the University of Houston about how faculty might deal with this new situation. Supposedly the PowerPoint contained these ‘bullets’:

You May Want To:
1) Be Careful Discussing Sensitive Topics

2) Drop Certain Topics from Your Curriculum

3) Not ‘Go There’ If You Sense Some Anger

4) Limit Student Access Off Hours

While deep in the heart of Texas they are likely very happy that the students will now be safe when they do their shooters, there have been, as there usually are, some unintended consequences. Mr. Richard Ford, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, decided not to give a guest lecture at Texas A&M University for which he would have been well-rewarded. Lest you quickly draw the conclusion that Mr. Ford is against gun ownership, you should know that that is not the case. Both he and Mrs. Ford used to carry pistols (as liberals who had been frequently mugged) and they both still enjoy sporting pastimes that involve heavy weaponry. But, he is anti-NRA and for saner gun laws and, like most Americans, holds views about the subject that are “complicatedly divergent.”

Although I was joking when I presented the title of a journal above, the rest of this is no joke. Ford expressed his views much better than I could present them here and you can find them in “Richard Ford on America’s Gun Problem,” Financial Times (UK), March 18, 2016 and the issue is frequently discussed in the Chronicle of Higher Education.