Texas Christian University students were told to seek shelter Tuesday morning after the school issued an alert of an armed person on campus.
“Armed person on campus. Seek Shelter immediately,” the campus-wide alert instructed around 7 a.m. “More updates to follow as available.”
Police determined that a shuttle bus driver pulled a weapon on another bus driver in a road rage incident on campus. After a mass shooting in Sutherland, Texas, this week where 26 people were killed, nerves at TCU were raw.
“There is a lot of unnecessary anger in our world today,” said TCU Chancellor Victor Boschini in a statement. “I’d urge all of us to fight that feeling with every fiber of our bodies -- in other words -- try harder to spread and foster peace and understanding vs. senseless violence.”
Texas is one of eight states that permit licensed gun owners to carry a concealed firearm on public college and university campuses, known as the “campus carry” law. This includes the University of Texas, which serves more than 214,000 students.
The law does not cover TCU, a private institution, which does not allow campus carry. The only private university to allow campus carry in Texas is Amberton University outside of Dallas.
“This is why we don’t have campus carry, so idiots like this don’t shut the whole place down and give people panic attacks,” tweeted Madalyn Jane.
“But campus carry didn't stop a shooting on campus ... It did stop any TCU student from being able to defend them or their peers against it,” countered Lauren Dooley.
Campus carry was sponsored by Republican lawmakers, including Governor Greg Abbott. Other states that allow guns on campus are Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi and Oregon.
In Texas, the law was introduced on the 50th anniversary of the shooting rampage at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman killed 17 people as he shot from a clock tower.
The student website and Twitter account TCU 360 reported that “students are walking to class now” at 9:16 a.m. CST The unnamed driver who allegedly fired the single shot fled the scene but was captured 9 miles away.
“Ok but my question is why on earth are the TCU shuttle drivers driving around with guns???” asked Adam Thomas on Twitter.
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