The Houston Chronicle Needs to Stop Carrying Anti-Campus Carry Activists’ Water

Houston Chronicle reporter Brett Barrouquere's Article
Houston Chronicle reporter Brett Barrouquere’s Article
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus

Austin, TX -(AmmoLand.com)- The same newspaper responsible for uncritically parroting the since- discredited claim that campus carry would cost two Texas university systems upward of $50 million dollars over six years has now falsely reported, “Texas university sees first injury after enacting campus carry law.”

That’s the headline on Houston Chronicle reporter Brett Barrouquere’s September 19 article about the recent accidental discharge of a handgun in a Tarleton State University residence hall.

Three lines into the article, Barrouquere clearly states, “University officials reported ‘minimal’ damage to the building and no injuries [emphasis added],” but that didn’t stop whoever wrote the headline from prioritizing clicks over facts.

In an era in which many people get their news from social media, a high percentage of the population never reads beyond an article’s headline. Even if the article itself is accurate, a bogus headline can take on a life of its own.

Houston Chronicle reporter Brett Barrouquere's False Tweet
Houston Chronicle reporter Brett Barrouquere’s False Tweet

Last spring, Students for Concealed Carry was inundated with hostile tweets and Facebook messages from people incensed that SCC would claim that campus carry could have saved the UT-Austin freshman who was murdered on campus on April 3. However, SCC never said any such thing. The source of that claim is a Newsweek headline falsely proclaiming, “Campus Carry Advocates Suggest Gun Might Have Prevented University of Texas Murder.”

Although SCC never stated or insinuated that campus carry might have made a difference in that particular crime, the headline was just too enticing for a struggling online news magazine to pass up. And even though the journalist who wrote the story updated the text of the article to clarify that SCC never made any such claim, the clickbaity headline remains.

SCC’s leaders work long, hard hours, without pay, to make the case for campus carry. Those hours shouldn’t be made longer and harder simply because print news outlets need to boost their online ad revenue.

About Students for Concealed Carry:

Students for Concealed Carry (SCC) is a national, non-partisan, grassroots organization comprising college students, faculty, staff, and concerned citizens who believe that holders of state-issued concealed handgun licenses should be allowed the same measure of personal protection on college campuses that current laws afford them virtually everywhere else. SCC is not affiliated with the NRA or any other organization. For more information on the debate over campus carry in Texas, visit WhyCampusCarry.com.

For more information on SCC, visit ConcealedCampus.org or Facebook.com/ConcealedCampus.

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Heart of TEXAS

The media will always fall back to defend their rights under the 1st amendment to free speech, whether it is factual speech or not.
However, they will always also use that same freedom to attack our rights under the 2nd amendment, eve though the only reason the 1st still exists is because we have the 2nd..

Vanns40

The only way to stop all this crap is if there are consequences. Consequences if you have a negligent discharge (you have to go through a firearms safety course before you can carry on campus again) and consequences for the student newspaper (the reporter is fired and/or the paper is suspended for a couple of weeks). Then and ally then will you see some responsibility taken on all sides.

DaProf

Kind of hard to stop carrying the water when you are the one pumping it. Or is that “pimping it”?

Lies are all they have when the facts don’t fit their agenda. And it seems, without a pang of conscience either.

But then, the the LiberalMind(tm)…The Agenda is all that matter. Anything that violates The Agenda is attacked.
Emotion over Reason…the LiberalWay.

jamie

you do know — in minds of anti gun shooting a lamp is exact same thing as killing 140 people in some crowded mall

typical