Georgia 'campus carry' gun bill sparks heavy student and faculty backlash

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Georgia 'campus carry' gun bill sparks heavy student and faculty backlash

Timothy Pratt in Atlanta, Georgia
Friday 8 April 2016 15.24 BST

CS Thachenkary had been a business professor for 33 years at Georgia State University and headed up several faculty senate committees. But this year, a bill he predicted would pass hastened his decision to retire.

“I met with my dean back in September and gave him advance notice,” he said. “I told him: ‘This gun bill is going to raise its ugly head – and I don’t want to be among the first casualties.’”

The bill to allow guns on college campuses did pass, and now awaits the signature or veto of Georgia’s governor, Nathan Deal.

HB 859, similar to a bill recently passed in Texas that spurred professors there to leave, would allow students 21 and over to carry concealed weapons on campus with a permit, except in student housing, sororities and fraternities and at athletic events. If Deal signs it, Georgia will become the ninth state with such a law.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/apr/08/georgia-campus-carry-gun-bill-public-colleges-universities

[Press Virginia]

1. I can understand their fears with the endless flow of blood in the streets

on every other campus where this is allowed.

Constant, roaming gun battles

[redstatebluegirl]

2. A Dean of the College of Architecture at UT Austin quit over the law in Texas.

A spouse and children should not be afraid when someone goes to work to teach. My husband teaches a hard science. Nothing like a pissed off pre-med student who is flunking organic chemistry to make you uneasy when the law allows them to carry. This is stupid.

[Eleanors38]

3. Frankly, this issue is small potatoes. I used to teach college-level government...

and we had guest and student presentations and discussion groups dealing with abortion, "gay liberation," marijuana legalization, unionization, and ...guns. In one session, two LEO students brought several firearms to class to explain the differences. One was a chrome-plated "Grease Gun," and the other an M-16 once owned by LBJ before he turned it over to the Austin PD.

Only complaints I got were when I did a unit on the legitimacy of inquiry, and used the movie The Exorcist as an example. Some excitable Catholics, I presume.

[redstatebluegirl]

4. I respectfully disagree.

I think it depends on where you teach and what you teach. This batch of students are highly excitable, I quit 5 years ago after I had to call security over a student in my office threatening me with his Dad in tow. I was grateful they weren't armed but security was.

[Eleanors38]

5. Community colleges are not lock-step legacy students with high SAT scores...

The backgrounds are much more diverse; racially, income-wise, class, nationally, politically. Some had criminal records. I graded them all.

Frankly, I think many people are overly fearful because violence is the sine qua non for what remains of traditional "news." Our national crime rates have been falling for over 20 years, yet the number of guns, and likely the number of people who have guns, has gone up tremendously during this same time. And the number of kids (-15 yoa) killed in gun accidents has plunged to maybe 65 A YEAR. Like it or not most "gun crimes" are concentrated in small clusters within metro areas. Put another way, you can walk the streets of Miami or Memphis with little chance of being a crime victim. If you avoid the hot spots. (I am told there are apps you can download which show scatter charts of crime overlaying city streets. They can be quite startling.)

Incidentally, one of the many documents generated from the mass murder at the University of Texas, 1966, relates the return fire by students who either retrieved their deer rifles from residences, or merely took them from pick-up headache racks. One of those shooting back was said to be a professor, firing from his classroom building. He evidently kept his rifle on campus, perhaps for a quick getaway deer hunt.

[TeddyR]

6. 21 and over only can carry

And does anyone think that a "no carry" law is going to stop the homicidal student? This is baseless fear - lots of states allow campus carry and I haven't seen a single story about a student opening fire in class because he/she could carry.