Pity the poor fools who love gun control and who would saddle us with their dangerous attempts to recreate past tyrannies.  And the criminals who prefer safer working environments.

They have suffered yet another defeat as Tennessee’s governor allowed a bill to allow faculty, staff and other employees of Tennessee’s colleges to carry on campus with their carry licenses.

Yes, campus carry marches on, albeit in baby steps in Tennessee.  Give it a couple of more years and when the sky doesn’t fall, Al Gore’s (former?) home state will have full campus carry, where students with carry licenses will be able to carry as well.

Or maybe it won’t even take that long.

Haslam allows controversial guns on campus bill to become law

Nashville (Tennessean) – Gov. Bill Haslam said Monday he is allowing a controversial guns-on-campus bill to become law without his signature.

The bill allows full-time faculty, staff and other employees of Tennessee’s public colleges and universities who have handgun-carry permits to carry their guns on campus — but they must notify the local law enforcement agency with primary responsibility for security on their campus — the campus police, for example.

The governor said in a letter to the House and Senate speaker that he prefers to let campuses make their own decision.

“I am letting SB 2376 become law without my signature. I have long stated a preference for systems and institutions to be able to make their own decisions regarding security issues on campus, and I again expressed this concern throughout the legislative process this year,” he said in a statement.

Why is this important?

Because no university campus is an island from criminal activity.

Here’s an excerpt from one professor’s letter to the Civil Justice Subcommittee reference this (then-proposed) piece of legislation:

• University police officers were notified within the past hour that a man approached a woman in the parking lot…, grabbed her arm, and made a sexual demand….

• [U]niversity police officers responded to the report of an attempted robbery in a parking lot…. Two men, one armed with a blue handgun, approached a student and demanded money…

• University police learned within the past 30 minutes that an armed robbery was reported to the Memphis Police Department [very close to campus]….

• University Police received a report of two men with weapons… [T]he man in the Toyota pointed what appeared to be a black rifle…. A second man, who was the driver of the Toyota, walked up and showed a pistol in his waistband…

• Four (4) men carrying firearms entered an apartment [on the outskirts of campus] and demanded personal items and cash….

• A man, armed with a silver handgun, reportedly approached two men and demanded money and personal items….

• Two men were reported to have approached a man as he got out of his vehicle….  One of the men was armed with a handgun and demanded personal property….

• Three men were reported to have approached two people walking…  One of the men was armed with a handgun and demanded personal property, including cell phones….

• [A] man reported to Police Services that … [he] was approached by two men who demanded money and threatened him….

• A man approached two people walking…. He was armed with a small, dark-colored handgun and demanded money…

• [A] student reported she was verbally harassed by a man in the … Library.  When she went into a restroom, the man followed her inside and exposed himself…

• A man approached two students walking….  He got out of his vehicle with a shotgun and ordered them to drop their belongings….

Again, these reports are not from across Tennessee or even across Memphis. This is just a sampling of the most egregious incidents that actually happened on or near my own university campus within the past year.