A national gun-safety advocacy group delivered more than 2,000 signatures to Georgia’s Speaker of the House Thursday asking state lawmakers to reject the latest effort to allow guns on college campuses.
A proposed bill allowing guns to be carried on campuses is dangerous and misguided, representatives from Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America said.
“We want common-sense measures put in place for our gun laws,” said Lucy McBath.
McBath is the mother of Jordan Davis, the Marietta teenager shot and killed during a 2012 argument over loud music in the parking lot of a Florida convenience store.
“We want legislators to know they are accountable to us. We hold them accountable to keep us safe in our communities, particularly our college students on campuses and not put them in deliberate harm’s way by allowing them to have guns on campus,” she said.
House bill 859, sponsored by Rep. Rick Jasperse, R-Jasper, which would make it legal for anyone age 21 or older with a state weapons license to carry guns onto public college and university campuses. Firearms would remain banned in dormitories, fraternity and sorority houses and at athletic events.
The ‘campus-carry’ bill has not yet had a committee hearing, but has support from House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, and Rep. John Meadows, R-Calhoun, chairman of the Rules Committee, which determines which bills reach the House floor.
Supporters of the legislation have said the bill is needed to allow students to protect themselves against crime, such as the recent armed robberies of Georgia State University students in the campus library.
“We know statistically that those occasions are rare,” McBath said. “We know statistically that far more harm comes to people that are bearing arms, particularly on college campuses.”
The Moms Demand Action event comes the same week as other gun-safety groups also spoke out against the bill. The state's University System has long opposed campus carry.
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