University of Texas at Austin to allow guns in classrooms

My qualifications to comment on this: I teach at a private Texas university, and my wife teaches at UT. I am part of the faculty governing body which advised the board of trustees for my university on whether to exercise the right to opt out of the law.

> The University of Texas at Austin has begrudgingly agreed to allow students to carry guns into classrooms, months after state lawmakers passed a bill outlawing gun bans at public universities.

As the second part of the sentence indicates, this isn't so much a choice as a decision to comply with a law (which, I suppose, is a choice). I don't know why the president is presenting it as such, since it seems only to shift responsibility on to him for a decision that is not legally his to make (and whose result he doesn't, or professes not to, like). Public universities do not have the same 'opt-out' right as private universities.

While allowing limited exemptions for 'gun-free zones' (I don't remember the exact language)—one example mentioned is a single-occupant office, if its sole occupant decides to make it so—the bill specifically mentions that universities cannot perform an end run around the legislation by declaring, say, all classrooms to be gun-free zones.

That's great, now there wont' be mass shootings. (not irony)