This weekend, three news stories horrified me.

On Friday, The New York Times reported that a gunman in Binghamton, New York had shot and killed 13 people before taking his own life. The victims were studying to become American citizens.

Saturday morning, I read on The Times’ Web site that three police officers in Pittsburgh were killed while responding to reports of domestic disturbance. The gunman was only 22 years old.

When I checked in on my hometown paper Sunday morning, I learned that a girl in St. Petersburg, Fla. had been killed that morning by shots from a semiautomatic rifle. She was eight years old.

To say that something is terribly wrong with such a world doesn’t do justice to the pain and anger the victims’ families must be feeling today. My heart goes out to all those touched by the senselessness of violent crime.

Nothing can bring back the lives lost this weekend. But for all those who may one day fall victim to gun violence, something must be done.

The same morning that the New York shootings took place, The Daily Campus announced that the Texas legislature is considering allowing students and faculty to carry concealed weapons on college campuses.

I recognize that many people feel strongly about gun rights. The constitution clearly supports an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, something the Supreme Court upheld in District of Columbia v. Heller. People deserve to feel safe in their own homes, and for many, this means owning a firearm.

But this is too much. Guns do not belong on college campuses.

Presumably, Texas legislators are hoping to prevent another college massacre like the one at Virginia Tech that shook the nation two years ago. This is not the way to do it.

For one thing, we already have plenty of guns on campus. They’re called the SMU police. In the event of an emergency, I have no doubt they would respond quickly and effectively.

More importantly, we should learn from the tragedies of this weekend. Guns are dangerous. They take lives and ruin many more.

I don’t delude myself that with stricter gun control laws, mass killings can be stopped. The mentally unstable will always find ways of acting out their destructive wrath.

The question is whether we want to add to this culture of violence. Handguns kept at home for personal protection are one thing, but would your neighbor carrying a gun to class make anyone safer?

The more powder you add to a keg, the more likely an explosion becomes. The more guns we put on campus, the less safe we all are.

This is about what kind of world we want to live in. Do we want a society in which guns are at best a necessary evil or do we want to further cultivate the culture of violence whose effects devastated three communities this weekend?

It will be a long, long battle to end gun violence in this country. There are no easy solutions. But the bill before the legislature is a decisive step backwards. It will make our lives more dangerous.

The Texas legislature claims to be acting in your interest. It claims to be acting in your friends’ interests. It claims to be acting in mine.

We’re all being let down.

Nathaniel French is a sophomore theater studies and math double major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].