Concealed weapons may soon be allowed on college campuses if a new bill is passed.
House bill 55 proposes to change the current law, which states no one is allowed to bring a gun on any school campus whether it is an elementary school, middle school, high school or college. The change would make it legal to bring a concealed weapon on college campuses, with the proper license, said Amanda Bryant, senator for the College of Education and sophomore political science major.
The Board of Regents urged the Student Government Association along with other college student governments in Georgia to stand with them in opposing this bill, said Barinaadaa Kara, SGA president and senior political science major.
However, there is a disagreement among the SGA about the bill, Kara said, leaving it hard to move forward with any actions. Senators from both stances have pleaded their cases, trying to give insight on why it would be beneficial or not to have concealed weapons allowed on campuses.
“There have been too many school shootings in the news for us not to be able to protect ourselves,” Bryant said. “People say that’s the job of the police officers, and it is to an extent, but we have personal responsibility for ourselves.”
With the proper education, classes and knowledge, Bryant added there is no reason students should not be able to protect themselves.
“You need the education,” Bryant said. “If you wait until there is a problem, then you’ve waited too long.”
Bryant said although it may be the job of public safety to protect the student body, there is doubt the department could handle such a highly intense situation without outside help.
“I don’t believe there are enough public safety officers in a school to protect all of the students,” Bryant said. “That’s why I think it should be our job and our responsibility to protect ourselves.”
However, the other side argued public safety does have enough officers to protect the student body and it’s the department’s obligation to do so, said JoAnna Molina, senator for the College of Education and senior psychology and professional writing major.
“We actually have no history of gun violence on our campus, so the argument of it being for the students’ protection is invalid in this situation,” Molina said.
Being able to carry a gun on campus would do more than just cause fear for the students on campus, she said.
“You are going to have a whole new demographic of the campus that, if eligible, have weapons while the other part of the campus doesn’t,” Molina said. “It creates an atmosphere of inequality.”
Molina also argued about the influence of stress levels, hormone levels and emotions on college students and allowing students to carry guns during such an unstable age could cause more harm than good.
“As college students it’s our job to get into arguments, educated arguments and debates without fear of being hurt for it,” Molina said.
More awareness could be made with public safety and more preventative measures could be taken to ensure Public Safety is aware and ready for extreme situations.
“Assuming that violence can be solved with more violence is something that rarely works, we see it in history all the time,” Molina said. “Adding more gun fire to a situation that has gun fire isn’t going to help.”
For the student body to be able to give input on the bill, the student government must first make a stand on one side or another, Kara said.
“A lot of people are not educated enough in the topic to really make an educational decision,” Bryant said. “It’s all based on emotion, and this is not an emotional situation.”
March 13th, 2012 at 2:32 AM
Responding to violence with violence not effective? Jesus tap dancing Christ! Do you think campus security has a ping pong paddle strapped to their right hip? No. It’s a firearm. A tool to dispense violence. Violence has never solved anything? History will show that violence has pretty much solved everything. Slavery, the holocaust, even our country’s independence was solved with it. Reality seems to have missed some people in college.
March 13th, 2012 at 3:03 PM
“We actually have no history of gun violence on our campus, so the argument of it being for the students’ protection is invalid in this situation,” Molina said.
Both Columbine and Virginia Tech had no history of gun violence and we saw what happened there. Would you wait to lock your car and house doors until after you were robbed? Why wait until there is a violent attack to prepare to defend yourself?
Allowing students to defend themselves will not create “an atmosphere of inequality.” The atmosphere of inequality already exists as the criminals have weapons and the students do not. Why give the criminals an additional advantage?
March 13th, 2012 at 4:01 PM
Young people 21 years of age are licensed and carrying everywhere else with no problems. It is not logical to assume those same people would suddenly become a problem if they were allowed to carry on campus.
Until a police officer can be assigned to be with each student 24/7, students cannot depend on the police to protect them. People shooting up a school is a rarity, but students being robbed, raped and mugged on campus where criminals know they have plenty of unarmed victims is happening far too often.
Assuming that violence can be stopped by forcing students to be unarmed victims is the very height of idiocy.
Time after time, it has been shown that the more people there are carrying guns the less crime there is. Also, guns are allowed on campuses in many states and there have been none of the problems some of these people are so worried about.
When you look at the facts of the situation, there is absolutely no reason licensed gun carriers should not be allowed to carry on campus.
March 13th, 2012 at 6:14 PM
The vast majority of college campus students are legal adults in the United States. The United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights were not written for us to ignore. When you take the rights of law abiding citizens, you place them in public as victims to those who care nothing for laws or abiding by them. Criminals are just that and will most often continue to be even when the law says they can’t. With that said, it makes perfect sense, that as legal adults in our communities, that young men and women in our college communities start acting like responsible adults in society. That includes practicing the rights to those freedoms and being held responsible for them when necessary. Each student cannot have a personal officer escort them from place to place on campus. Even with college officers in the area, often it is too late to stop tragedy from continuing when everyone except the gunman is defenseless. They should have the right to defend themselves as given them by our country’s Constitution, especially young women who are particularly vulnerable. It is far less likely that someone will do something to harm others around them if they know they themselves may be the one to get shot and possibly killed. I have found that as a woman carrying, having a firearm on one’s person is a great deturrent for those who seem to have ill intentions. As for public schools all together, there are those out there that argue the notion of having to use lethal force on a young person. This is unfortunate that it is even a possibility but it is just that none the less. If someone had been armed, we can only wonder and speculate how many students would have gotten to go home alive rather than die at the hands of one of their peers. We face a terrible question; Are we willing to lose many for the one, or risk the one to save the many? If it comes down to burrying one child or many, although I’d rather burry none, I would have to side with the one option. Many may call me cold and cruel for that but they may feel differently if it were their child laying in the casket. Lethal force may not even be needed in these cases. Sometimes just the fear of knowing that others carry the same “power” you are carrying is enough to give them that moment of pause to think about their actions. Perhaps it isn’t so much that we need to stop gun carry in such places. Perhaps it’s the fact that we as citizens, human beings, and American citizens need to start standing up for good morals, ethics, and our rights to our freedoms for the sake of our children and their futures. You may not like guns but if some mentally ill or criminally prone person levels off their weapon on your 5 year old’s forehead, I bet you’d be hoping someone nearby has a gun and knows how to use it wisely. Protect yourself…protect your children. Let this bill pass.
March 13th, 2012 at 6:30 PM
As a student, I understand both perspectives. There is a lot of fear regarding students with guns on campus. However, as a former member of the military and current firearms instructor I also am well aware of how fast things happen when someone pulls out a gun and begins shooting. I’m sure VA Tech officials may have said the argument was invalid before the first shooting at that school. Although it is the job of the local and campus police to protect the students and faculty, they are sometimes minutes away in a situation where minutes are an eternity and seconds are a lifetime. There is another side to this. As many know, you shouldn’t put students out there without knowing what they are doing and the implications it involves. A high level of training should be required to carry in this kind of environment as well as having an understanding of the mindset required, and the ability to use a potentially lethal tool such as a firearm under a high level of stress. Anyone who has had someone shooting at them and had bullets, fragments of wall, brick, or mortar ripping around them can attest that that should be something that is understood among all who carry, and even those that don’t.
March 14th, 2012 at 11:39 PM
I personally think that people are mentally ill. “Assuming that violence can be solved with more violence is something that rarely works, we see it in history all the time,” Molina said. “Adding more gun fire to a situation that has gun fire isn’t going to help.” That makes perfect sense….. NOT. That is the reason cops carry guns. Because they put an end to the problem.
“We actually have no history of gun violence on our campus, so the argument of it being for the students’ protection is invalid in this situation,” Molina said. —- Ok….. just because something has never happened at your school should mean it shouldnt matter???? That is about the dumbest thing I have ever heard… If it can happen we should prepare/ take into consideration that it can happen… you wear your seatbelt dont you? Your house has never been broken into or anything so that means you dont need and alarm system or locked doors??? That is NONSENSE!!
Molina also argued about the influence of stress levels, hormone levels and emotions on college students and allowing students to carry guns during such an unstable age could cause more harm than good.
– Dang lady!!! This makes no sense either… Because guess what… The same people that you dont want to have guns…. already have them…. and guess what the state has said they are legally allowed.. Your points have no merit.
O by the way…. get out of here with the inequality crap. So if that is going to create inequality I guess no one in highschool can drive because if all of them cant then none of them should…. WOW
March 15th, 2012 at 8:41 PM
“Assuming that violence can be solved with more violence is something that rarely works, we see it in history all the time,” Molina said. “Adding more gun fire to a situation that has gun fire isn’t going to help.”
History is rife with situations where the citizens should have been armed. Do you think the Jews would have just jumped into train deports heading for the gas chambers if they were properly armed?
Do you think Africans would have just complied with slavery if there was a gun around?
History is rife with the presense of violence in the absense of lenient gun laws.
Guns keep politicians, criminals and crazy idealists (like anti-gun people) in check, 3 groups of people who hate the average man. Most of the anti-gun crowd seems like people who have never shot a gun, may be scared or have never lived in reality where people break into houses and rob others.
The greatest aspect about this is that these senators really believe a shooting is going to be stopped by a simple ban! Come on now! You probably run a higher risk of getting hit with a piano, Qucik outlaw pianos!!!!!!
March 15th, 2012 at 11:39 PM
Make it a rule for students to be asked if they have a weapon, and a license for it if the law passes. Make them register it with the school, and if they can’t produce the proper ID for it confiscate the weapon as a penalty, and add a hefty fine if they go to collect it when they fined their proper ID. People who are responsible and go about this in a legal manner should be allowed to exercise their 1st Amendment Right. The only thing that ever stopped a school shooter was the fear of someone else having one, and the reason so many are killed due to school shootings is the fact that the law favors the criminal. A responsible person follows the law and does not bring a weapon to campus. This makes it a shooting gallery for anyone else who does not care about the law. Having a rule that says students should not be allowed to possess a gun while on campus does not make me feel safe. Ever since Columbine I have thought how could you even protect yourself in college for that situation? You would be lucky to break a window in time and you sure as hell could not hide behind any desks and their usually are only two ways out of a room if that. On this campus where we have the text message alert system to give us news about campus emergencies you cannot expect me to trust that when the cell phone reception in these buildings and campus is already bad.
March 17th, 2012 at 2:25 AM
HB 55 officially died after March 7 (Crossover Day) when it did not pass the House. I am not sure why this article refers to it, as it cannot become law on its own. I seriously doubt that will occur, not least because its sponsor, Bobby Franklin, died last summer.
On the subject of the article in general, adults who have GWCLs and carry weapons in many other places of the state every day will suddenly become incapable of acting responsibly once they set foot on a school campus? I would think we would be hearing about these people causing mayhem off campus if they were so incapable of handling emotions and stress.
Molina is wrong — when people commit physically violent acts, especially ones involving firing weapons, the thing that stops them is either 1) they commit suicide 2) they shoot all their targets/run out of ammunition or 3) someone else with a gun shoots them or points it at them.