Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog

Strangely enough, just as he did when asked for an initial injunction, U.S. Western District Judge Lee Yeakel did not find “but my feelings!” to be a persuasive legal argument against campus carry:

A U.S. Western District judge has tossed out a lawsuit from three University of Texas professors over the campus carry law.

In a seven-page ruling signed on Thursday, U.S. Judge Lee Yeakel said attorneys for professors Jennifer Lynn Glass, Lisa Moore and Mia Carter failed to present a sound argument that they will be physically harmed under the law. He said their concerns arise from a “subjective belief that a person may be more likely to cause harm to a professor or student as a result of the law and policy.”

Yeakel’s ruling is a win for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed.

“The court’s ruling today is the correct outcome,” Paxton said in a statement. “The fact that a small group of professors dislike a law and speculate about a ‘chilling effect’ is hardly a valid basis to set the law aside.”

The campus carry law went into effect last year, and allows students with concealed handgun licenses to carry them into classrooms and other buildings on campus. Since 1995, it has been legal for handgun license holders to carry them onto the campuses of Texas public universities.

The professors filed the suit on July 6, 2016 and asked for a preliminary injunction three weeks later that would have temporarily blocked the law from becoming effective. Yeakel denied the motion for an injunction, clearing the way for licensed holders to carry guns on campus to open the fall 2016 semester.

Given that more people were killed by stabbing (one) than shooting (zero) on UT campus in 2016-2017, evidence suggests that liberal fears of a horrific bloodbath following the legalization of campus carry were wildly overblown.

(Hat tip: Dwight.)

In case you missed it, a lawsuit attempting to block the implementation of campus carry has been rejected by a federal judge:

A federal judge has denied three University of Texas at Austin professors’ initial attempt to keep guns out of their classrooms under the state’s campus carry law.

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel ruled that the professors, who had sought a preliminary injunction to block implementation of the law, had failed to establish their likelihood for success. UT students resume classes on Wednesday, and the professors’ case will continue to work its way through the court while the law remains in effect.

The professors, Jennifer Lynn Glass, Lisa Moore and Mia Carter, filed their lawsuit against the university and the attorney general’s office. In the suit, the professors said the possibility of guns on campus could stifle class discussion in their courses, which touch on emotional issues like gay rights and abortion. They argued that was a violation of students’ First Amendment right to free speech.

From the text of the decision:

The court concludes at this stage in the proceedings that requiring public universities to allow licensed individuals to carry concealed handguns is a basis for the Campus Carry Law that bears a debatably rational relationship to the conceivable legitimate governmental end of enabling individuals to defend themselves.

Also:

It appears to the court that neither the Texas Legislature nor the Board of Regents has overstepped its legitimate power to determine where a licensed individual may carry a concealed handgun in an academic setting. The court concludes that Plaintiffs have failed to establish a substantial likelihood of success on their equal-protection claim under the Fourteenth Amendment.

IV. CONCLUSION
Because Plaintiffs at this time have failed to establish a substantial likelihood of ultimate success on the merits of their asserted claims, their request for immediate relief must fail. The court therefore need not and does not reach the remaining requirements for granting a preliminary injunction. Bluefleld, 577 F.3d at 253 (“[A] preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy which should not be granted unless the party seeking it has ‘clearly carried the burden of persuasion’ on all four requirements.”). Accordingly,

IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ Application for Preliminary Injunction (Clerk’s Doc. No. 20) is DENIED.

Score one for civil rights and the rule of law over irrational hopolophobia.