Abbott: Campus Carry Could Have Prevented Ohio State Attack

Commenting on the knife attack at Ohio State University that left 11 people injured, Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday that someone would “think twice” about carrying out such an attack in Texas due to its campus carry law.

by Patrick Svitek

Gov. Greg Abbott, commenting on the knife attack at Ohio State University that left 11 people injured, said Tuesday that someone would “think twice” about carrying out such an attack in Texas due to its campus carry law.

In an appearance on Fox News, Abbott suggested the law, which passed during the 2015 Texas legislative session, would have been a deterrent to people like Abdul Razak Ali Artan, the suspect in Monday’s knife attack. A police officer ultimately shot and killed Artan, who had driven his car into a group of pedestrians and started stabbing them with a butcher’s knife.  

“It’s instances like this where kids on campus could have guns, where they could have been able to respond initially,” Abbott said. “I think that on a college campus like here in Texas, people will think twice before waging an attack like this knowing that they could be gunned down immediately.”  

Texas’ campus carry law, which went into effect in August for four-year schools, allows students who have a license to carry concealed weapons in college buildings. Ohio bans guns on college campuses unless they are locked in a car.

Abbott also used the attack to highlight his decision, made official two months ago, to withdraw from the U.S. refugee resettlement program over security concerns. Artan was reportedly a Somali refugee who came to the United States in 2014 as a legal permanent resident, briefly living in Dallas before moving to Columbus, Ohio.  

“I predicted this was going to happen,” Abbott said, touting his withdrawal decision as prescient. “I could not be an accomplice to importing terrorism into the United States of America.”

“It is insanity that the United States of America will not safeguard our people by bringing in people from terrorist-sponsored nations,” Abbott added. 

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune.