LiveBlog: 4/17 LSU Student Government Senate Meeting

Lateness never helps

7:14 p.m. - Sorry for my lateness, but I tried to get here sooner. What fun it is to make my way around the Law School for the first time. We are in room W230 of the Law School, and I have to be a little frank. For the first time, Natalie Messina isn’t my compatriot in representing the Reveille tonight, but I am joined by Daniel McBride, resident bad man of the Reveille. I don’t think he approves. He had to sit, however, behind the same pro-gun people from last night’s session, making me wonder what they have on them right now, or more importantly, what would happen if they get their way.

Sen. Chandler

7:17 p.m. - Sen. Kyle Chandler, after a heated debate last night with the pro-gun posse, brings up laws from the U.S. Constitution, including the Second Amendment.

7:18 p.m. - Sen. Avery says, “Do you think someone would go through background checks, psychological evaluations and the like would prevent someone from killing themselves?” Sen. Chandler replies they’re nothing stopping them from shooting themselves in the head later.

7:19 p.m. - Sen. Juneja tries to make a point about the whole community, but Sen. Chandler replies that we’re only talking about college kids. Sen. Juneja brings up the two slain Indian students from last semester, and Sen. Chandler continues to talk about students potentially killing themselves if they had a gun with them on campus. He then appears a little misguided with his insinuation that girls are less likely to own a gun, arousing arrogant giggling throughout the room.

7:23 p.m. - The senators are going back and forth on a simple point. We’re talking in hypotheticals, about scenarios and statistics on whether or not what could happen could happen. What gets lost in this song and dance are two fundamental facts: More guns make areas less safe, and the Louisiana House of Representatives doesn’t give two cents about the opinion of the LSU Student Government Senate. Whether or not SG says its opinion, and whichever it is, will not influence the decision of the final vote, regardless of how long it takes to debate this irrelevant resolution.

Debate

7:27 p.m. - Sen. Remson comes up to say he won’t talk about hypotheticals. He brings up a good point about the nature of credibility when it comes to having a Driver’s License in court. “It’s a privilege that Driver’s License owners have that their word is respected over someone who has never been to the DMV.” He then says the same is in effect for concealed gun license owners, and their consequence for breaking the law will be greater for owning the training and the privilege of a concealed gun permit. He says he feels more safe if he knows someone has a concealed permit in the class room because that man will be protecting someone else’s life in the event of an attack.

The Law School helps

7:34 p.m. - Anna Dearmon steps up to explain the difference between “Point of Information” and “Point of Clarification.” Information is a question, clarification is an answer.

Sen. Sellers

7:35 p.m. - Sen. Sellers argues against the House Bill. “You can’t really group what happens at [Edward Gay] Apartments and something like Virginia Tech. This isn’t conducive to learning. This is not the solution to our safety issue.” He then provides an allegory about a girl being stopped at night, dropping her I.D. and getting her head blown off.
Sen. Blanco brings up a point of clarification about girls owning guns as well, and Sen. Sellers asserts that he is a jumpy individual.

Sen. Juneja brings up a statistic about the lack of gratuitous fatalities from concealed gun holders. Sen. Sellers says he went a little out of line. After another question, he says the law would make the campus less vulnerable to attack.

Sen. Graham asks how Sen. Sellers would defend himself against someone who tried to intrude in his apartment on campus with a gun. Sen. Sellers says he doesn’t know, but the law is still a bad thing. I admire Sen. Sellers’s resolve. He repeats that this is not conducive to learning. He brings up the story of his cousin and got a tazer. He said, “She’ll probably taze anyone that stands behind her.”

Sen. Brinks

7:43 p.m. - Sen. Brinks says we don’t have to pass anything tomorrow. “Whatever we send to the State, it’ll be a powerful tool.” He’ll assume the students will be automatically for or against. “We don’t have to vote for either of these bills until we can assure we’re representing our constituents well.” Well said. The House doesn’t care anyway.

Sen. Chandler continued

7:47 p.m. - Sen. Chandler correctly says that LSU isn’t just a University, but a day care, high school and middle school, and we need to be thinking about them. He says that we need to be thinking about representing the whole school, and most of the people he’s talked to and they all hate this bill. Sen. Boyd asks him if he talked to anyone who wanted to get a permit, and Sen. Chandler told him no, but Sen. Boyd put words in his mouth to get him to say, “Because they don’t matter. OK,” and Sen. Boyd sits back down.

Sen. Juneja

7:51 p.m. - Sen. Juneja is misguided in his words, as he says he has met people who are good people who happen to own concealed weapons permits. He talks about a girl who “got nauseous” when they suggested the bill to them, but the senator asked her whether or not “she got sick when she went to bars or clubs or other places off campus.” Bars and clubs are off campus, but we’re talking about the University. The University is not an adequate place for guns, as I type next to the increasingly nervous gun lobby.

Sen. Graham

7:54 p.m. - Sen. Graham is 50-50 when it comes to guns on campus. He feels the campus is safe, but “the people that have the permits don’t feel safe.” This is faulty logic. The people with the guns, WITH THE GUNS, don’t feel safe. He doesn’t feel he needs to brings guns onto campus, but he wishes that to happen to the students sitting in the gallery, and it feels it would help if given any emergency.

Sen. Chandler asks if it makes the campus uncomfortable, should the bill be passed? He brings up a hypothetical in which 23,000 people don’t want guns on campus, but 1,000 do, should we pass the bill. Sen. Graham speaks about defending their Second Amendment rights. Sen. Chandler continues about the only state, Utah, with the law currently in place, and wonders whether or not, if this bill gained speed and was passed in multiple states, would it lead to a rise in killings? Other states are considering these in their legislatures, but the policies in particular Universities are in place for a reason. Sen. Chandler then asks if more people have guns on campus, would it lead to an increase in killings. Sen. Graham replies no, but can’t justify the answer. Another senator looks at the data in the past showing an increase in violence on campus.

I think I have the solution. Why don’t we all bring guns to the campus and shoot it out like men? Doesn’t that seem reasonable?!?!?

Sen. Chandler repeats his question, and Sen. Graham says no, but gains applause with his simplicity. Sickening.

Closing comments

8:02 p.m. - People are expecting me to write down something that could have been interpreted for a metaphor for something sleazy. I won’t do it, because half the Senate is reading the blog.

8:03 p.m. - She says, “we need to teach, we need to learn, and we don’t need guns. We’re against having them on campus. We feel campus should be a place for education. To bring up a point when I got laughed at in the gallery, and I said what if I knew someone had a gun, and I snatched it from him, and I was laughed at for that.” She replies to the gun lobby as the students “to my left.” She thanks the students for coming because, “it’s so rare that we get students who care this much to come.” The presence of five concerned students at SG arouses applause, while clearing up the air about the question of SG’s irrelevance. The case is closed. The students don’t care.

Vote

8:09 p.m. - I means we hate guns, No means we like guns. Roll call vote. Almost half of the Senate is missing.

8:13 p.m. - By a vote of 9-14, the bill fails. The next bill is to support the same House bill.

Support

8:14 p.m. - “Feeling safe isn’t the same as being safe. If you don’t like weapons, you need to move to another country, because this is America and we have a right to defend ourselves.” Woo-hoo America. Yee-haw!

8:17 p.m. - Darrell Ray, adviser to Student Government, finally brings up the point that debate over whether or not guns would be allowed in resident halls is irrelevant, as there is no official from LSU Residential Life.

8:18 p.m. - Sen. Brinks says that voting nay on both of these bills wouldn’t stop the students from being able to call their legislatures and make their voices heard.

Roll call vote

8:20 p.m. - After a vote to support the House bill, the vote is an 11 to 11 tie. Speaker Robertson uses his tiebreaker vote to vote I, and the bill is passed. I need a minute. SG just said, we want guns on campus.

Just a moment...

8:32 p.m. - Sen. Prestridge just made a motion to rescind the bill, and debate will commence about whether or not to rescind today’s bill supporting concealed weapons on campus. He brings up both votes, 9-14 in opposition of the House bill, 11-11 in favor.

8:33 p.m. - Sen. Sellers respects the resolutions of this body, and asks that we make clear the 11-11 vote was noted. A rescinding vote requires 2/3 passage of the Senate body.

8:34 p.m. - Speaker Pro Temp Clark says “we’ve spent three hours on this vote.” It’s actually two, but he keeps going by saying a majority was reached, and we should respect the vote.

8:35 p.m. - Sen. Blanco can’t believe we passed this bill. By we, I don’t mean the student body, I mean SG. “How can you tell the student body this is what they want? We don’t know. Please think about what you’re about to do.”

8:36 p.m. - Sen. Juneja doesn’t care about the time of debate, rather the substance of the bill. He says we should decline both, but the people he’s talked to wanted this bill. He says they did vote, and they should have thought to vote.

8:37 p.m. - Sen. Remson congratulates the body on giving it a story to tell. He says that this discussion has become bigger than we thought. “The majority ruled on this discussion. I don’t think it was a bad thing that this was passed. We went to debate and we got answers. It has a decided voice on it, and people will be listening now. This is why I’m proud to call myself an American. I think it shows the process works.” The process just silenced the student body with a barely present quorum and the voices of the students completely blocked out.

8:40 p.m. - Sen. Bryant says it was 11 to 11, and the speaker is the senator. He had a voice, and it was 12 to 11. That’s a majority.

8:41 p.m. - Sen. Chandler thinks the voice of the majority was heard. But he talked to his constituents, and if the senate body didn’t, they should rescind this bill. “It hurts LSU’s name if we send this bill without asking the students.”

8:41 p.m. - Sen. Prestridge thinks rescinding is the right thing to do. “If we send this bill to the House, they should see it was 11 to 11, and they will know it was this close.”

The vote

8:42 p.m. - With Sen. Juneja abstaining, the vote to rescind fails overwhelmingly, and SG smears the name of the University with this resolution.

Read the original blog posts at The Daily Reveille...