Governor Abbott: Campus Carry Makes OSU-Style Attack Less Likely in Texas

On November 29, Governor Greg Abbott (R) said the existence of campus carry makes an Ohio State University-style attack less likely in the state of Texas.

Abbott made these comments the day after Abdul Razak Ali Artan drove into pedestrians on the OSU campus, then got out of his car and began slashing at students with a butcher knife. The incident ended when an OSU PD officer arrived on scene and shot Artan.

According to KHOU, Abbott used a Fox News appearance to differentiate between the gun laws in Ohio versus those in Texas.

“It’s instances like this where kids on campus could have guns, where they could have been able to respond initially. I think that on a college campus like here in Texas, people will think twice before waging an attack like this knowing that they could be gunned down immediately,” Abbott said.

Campus carry became the law of the land in Texas on August 1, 2016, allowing students with concealed carry licenses to carry a gun on their person for self-defense “in college buildings.” On the other hand, concealed carry permit holders in Ohio are only allowed to have a gun locked in their cars on campus; which means they would have to run all the way to car while under attack, retrieve the gun, then run all the way back to the point of attack to intervene on behalf of fellow students.

It is interesting to note NBC News reports that OSU attacker Abdul Artan was a Somali refugee. In light of this, Governor Abbott used his Fox News appearance to remind viewers that he pulled Texas out of the U.S. refugee resettlement program two months ago. He made this decision “over security concerns.”

Abbott said, “I predicted this was going to happen. I could not be an accomplice to importing terrorism into the United States of America.” He intimated that the Obama administration policy endangers Americans “by bringing in people from terrorist-sponsored nations.”

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of “Bullets with AWR Hawkins,” a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.