UTK Student Elections

I posed this question to the two political parties running in UTK's student government elections today. I will update if I get any response from either party.

Fuel/Revolt Leadership:
The Constitution of the United States confirms the right of every individual to keep and bear arms. The State of Tennessee, however, restricts this right by prohibiting students from carrying guns which they, otherwise, can lawfully possess. Acknowledging the fact that changing the law will involve a vote of the Tennessee General Assembly, how will you work to ensure that our campus does not disarm students who seek to protect themselves?

The response from "Revolt:"


Hey Phillip, thanks for the question. That's a really hot-button issue around UT, especially with the legislation discussed recently. One of the important roles that the SGA Government Affairs committee takes on is as a lobbying organization on behalf of the UT student body. If students as a constituency want their government to transmit messages like this to state legislators in Nashville, it's SGA's role to do that. REVOLT believes that Government Affairs is one of the Student Services committees that is working well right now and has a relationship with state government.

We'd like to see SGA on the whole work more efficiently with local government, and we'd like to see better prioritizing of our police forces, so that students arming themselves might not seem imminently necessary.

ppardue1 said:

The response from "Revolt:"


Hey Phillip, thanks for the question. That's a really hot-button issue around UT, especially with the legislation discussed recently. One of the important roles that the SGA Government Affairs committee takes on is as a lobbying organization on behalf of the UT student body. If students as a constituency want their government to transmit messages like this to state legislators in Nashville, it's SGA's role to do that. REVOLT believes that Government Affairs is one of the Student Services committees that is working well right now and has a relationship with state government.

We'd like to see SGA on the whole work more efficiently with local government, and we'd like to see better prioritizing of our police forces, so that students arming themselves might not seem imminently necessary.

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An alarming answer that I believe is deliberately trying to be ambiguous and lull you into voting for the respondent. There is no acknowledgement of the Constitution, the restriction of rights of citizens on campus or the present conditions on campus.

ecocks said:

An alarming answer that I believe is deliberately trying to be ambiguous and lull you into voting for the respondent. There is no acknowledgement of the Constitution, the restriction of rights of citizens on campus or the present conditions on campus.

Click to expand...

Just tell them the student paper will be censored, or that they can only protest on 10 square feet behind the dumpsters of the indoor track center, and see how loud they howl.

Sadly, the other party did not even see fit to respond; though I agree that the answer from "Revolt" goes on without saying anything. The worst part is that we have a terrible crime rate, one of which the UTPD does nothing to quench. In light of this fact, one would think that students would be open to having their rights restored; however, I have yet to get much enthusiasm when I mention it. It appears, at this time, that "Revolt" is going to sweep the election.

I had a conversation today with "Fuel's" VP. I raised the question that was ignored earlier. At first he began to explain that he thought it was a good idea to have guns on campus.

"Oh yeah, you ought to be able to bring them to the T-Recs (Athletic Center) and hand them in until you want to go out and hunt or target shoot. Then, once you’re done you can bring them back and check them back in."

I had to explain to him that a checked in gun was pretty useless to me and that, no, I wanted to carry one on my person. He finally understood what my intent was and began telling me that he would support carry on campus, but, that, obviously I would have to have a UT permit.

"Oh, you mean a THGCP."
"No, you ought to have to be licensed by the university to carry a gun. We will have to do background checks and such, don't you know? And then, we would want you to wear your license in a visible place. I mean, what if a shooting happened? How would the cops know who the bad guy is if there are all these people with guns?"

At this point I realized two things:
1) He was going to say anything he could to convince me that he was the one to vote for regardless of what he actually believed or would act upon.
2) Anyone that believes I need to have redundant licenses (ignoring the foolishness of a license to begin with) is too unreasonable to waste my time with.

With that, I went on to class.