Now over a week since the mass shooting at the Orlando gay nightclub Pulse—the deadliest in American history, as 49 were killed—MSNBC host Tamron Hall is taking a handle on the national gun crisis into her own hands.
Hall is set to host a one-hour special called Guns on Campus: Tamron Hall Investigates for Investigation Discovery, Deadline reports, on August 7th at University of Texas Austin. The dayside host chose the location because, in addition to the gun debate being a very current national issue, the special intends to mark the 50th anniversary of the Tower Shooting at the college.
The Tower Shooting, though its name has gotten lost in the plethora of mass shootings since, occurred when 25 year-old student Charlie Whitman opened fire on his fellow students from a clock tower for a little over an hour and a half. By the end of it all, sixteen innocent students had died as well as Whitman himself, who like in the style of many college gunmen to follow, took his own life. The shooting was the first recorded massacre on an American college campus but was unfortunately not the last.
Hall’s debate, while held in honor of the students that were killed fifty years ago, is going to focus on the issue at hand at UT Austin, as it’s a question that is being posed at many schools around the country—to prevent further mass shootings on campus, should conceal-and-carry laws be implemented so students can protect themselves?
Said Hall, “In a country with a history of more than 270 school shootings, will putting more guns in the hands of students and faculty prevent bloodshed, or be the cause of further death and injury?”
Joining the dayside host for the televised debate will be Former Navy Seal, Chancellor William McRaven (who had a hand in the plot to kill Bin Laden), as well as the school’s professors and students to discuss whether or not guns have a place on campus.
Two of the students at the panel, however, will not be from UT Austin. One of the pair is the Virginia Tech shooting survivor Colin Goddard, who now spends his time advocating for gun control, while the other—serving as his ideological adversary—is Amanda Collins of University of Nevada, a campus rape survivor who’s advocating that students should be able to have concealed firearms.
“Is there common ground which might provide a path forward towards school safety,” asks Hall as the defining question of this for-TV special, “or will ideological opposition prevent progress?”
The special itself is being produced by NBC News’s subsidiary company Peacock Productions. It will air on Investigative Discovery live, on Sunday, August 7th, at 10pm.