In May of 2017, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed a campus carry bill into law. In September of that year, six Georgia college professors filed a lawsuit against Governor Deal and Georgia AG Chris Carr. The professors alleged the state didn’t have the authority to regulate its own university system.
“Whether firearms on campuses help or hinder the cause of creating a safe and secure learning environment is, to be sure, a subject of intense debate,” the lawsuit said. “Reasonable minds can and do differ on this issue, but this case is not about who is right. Rather, it is about which entity decides.”
Last week, Judge Kimberly Adams denied the injunction to stop the heavily regulated bearing of arms in Georgia institutions of higher learning. Judge Adams presides over the Superior Court of Fulton County.
Superior Court Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams wrote in her ruling her decision had nothing to do with the merits of the complaint. Instead, she wrote, “because the State has not waived sovereign immunity, and, to the extent Plaintiffs claims could be sustained against Defendants in their individual capacities, official immunity would bar such claims.” …
The professors argued campus carry is dangerous and unconstitutional. The law has been long sought by conservatives and gun rights activists as a safety measure for students, faculty and administrators. Gov. Nathan Deal signed the law in 2017. He and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr were defendants in the case.
The professors say they are considering an appeal.
The Georgia campus carry law has now been in effect for over a year without ill effects. The experience in Georgia mirrors those in other states. Five other states — Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Texas, and Utah — explicitly allow for the licensed concealed carry of firearms on campus, including inside of campus buildings. Kansas has had constitutional carry on its campuses for over a year.
As Students for Concealed Carry on Campus predicted, problems have been minimal. There have been no murders, rapes, suicides or assaults with guns legally carried on campus, since at least 2007. And despite dire warnings, blood has not run through the halls of academe.
©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
The ride never ends.
the problem is they think they live on some sort of intellectual island protected from the outside world…that is the way it once used to be…but Whitman shattered that myth…
Looking at that picture of the anti-gun folks, they all just look sad and defeated. Like a bus just ran over their puppy. I bet if we just put them on a good program of anti-depressants, they would stop being anti-gun.
When I see that, all I can think of is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX7wtNOkuHo
well,..they yearn for a better, more sane world…can’t fault them for that…..
And they hope to achieve it by mandating insanity for us all.
Seems like it would be easier for them to just seek psychiatric help.
I hope you’re kidding because that is what the majority of the perpetrators of mass shootings had in their system.
A message for the Very Special People who make their living by posturing and posing in academia:
There’s something in life called “The Golden Rule.”
Translated into reality, it means “He who has the gold, makes the rules.”
This means if the state legislature, as duly authorized by the voters and taxpayers of your state, have enacted a law that allows people to pack a concealed weapon on your precious campus, guess what? You’re going to have to do so – because the people funding your paychecks have so decided.
Appealing to a bunch of lawyers who dress up in drag isn’t going to advance your cause – it will only delay the inevitable, and ultimately anger the people who fund your paycheck.
In Georgia it’s a bit more complicated than that. Control of colleges and universities in GA are constitutionally ceded to the Board of Regents and University System of Georgia rather than the legislature.
Article VIII.IV.(b) “The government, control, and management of the University System of Georgia and all of the institutions in said system shall be vested in the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia.”
So the legislature pays the bills, and the BOR and USG make the decisions when it comes to higher ed. That being said, this isn’t an issue of who rules the institutions.
It’s very straight forward with the regulation of firearms and other weapons being preempted. The Board of Regents and University System of Georgia simply have no authority to regulate/override State firearms laws.
Ga. Code Ann. § 16-11-173(b)(1) Except as provided in subsection (c) of this Code section, no county or municipal corporation, by zoning or by ordinance or resolution, nor any agency, board, department, commission, or authority of this state, other than the General Assembly, by rule or regulation shall regulate in any manner:
…
(B) The possession, ownership, transport, carrying, transfer, sale, purchase, licensing, or registration of firearms or other weapons or components of firearms or other weapons;
Two points: 1) Agreed that preemption is likely to be the central issue and that campus carry is likely to carry the day ultimately. 2) Constitution trumps code.
Weird. Why does the Leg fund them? And if I am on their campus but not a student or faculty, why would I pay any attention to them?
The same reason the legislature funds anything else: to buy votes. And you don’t apart from the sworn officers keeping the peace on campus who answer to the president of the institutions.
Well, because a university operates much like a small city. It may have its own police force, its own medical system, transportation system, food service, road maintience, even utilities, etc. And many universities double the size of towns when in session. To isolate one issue like campus carry is to miss the point. There are parallel questions about alcohol, free speech, entertainment venues, intellectual property, building naming, dress codes, artwork, invited speakers, etc. So thinking that the gun issue is driving anything is shortsighted.
So think of a university as a small state with its own rules whether you like them or not.
Who is paying for these government employees to sue the government???
It is the tax payer?
I betcha. Tho I suppose it may be their union.
The unions aren’t very strong in higher ed in GA. It’s possible but unlikely.
Is that Trigglypuff in the upper left corner?
One of the protesters in that photo is holding up a sign which reads,
While that is a nice sentiment, IT MEANS ABSOLUTELY ZERO TO THIEVES, RAPISTS, STALKERS, MURDERERS, SPREE KILLERS, AND TERRORISTS!
Defining policy based on how violent sociopaths and criminals are supposed to behave — who by their very definition refuse to behave — is infantile at best and downright evil at worst.
What uncommon sense said.
There might be something else going on here. Judges can read the handwriting on the wall; they might be better at it than most of us. The “dog” in this ring is SCOTUS. Every Circuit court judge has in his briefcase a sketch of his personal design for a robe that will distinguish himself from 8 brethren. (Every corporal carries a field marshal’s baton in his knapsack.)
Likewise, every district judge is measuring his odds of winning an appoint to a Circuit court seat. Every trial judge in a state court wonders about the opportunity for an appointment to an appellate court.
With such a phenomena in play, prudent judges will want to avoid being overruled by a superior court. That’s going to happen depending on the direction the courts seem to be going from the Supremes on-down. With Trump in the White House with two Supreme Court nominees, judges are acutely aware that there is a new jurisprudence in town. They aren’t going to want to be caught on the wrong side of this wave.
In this case, the judge found a pretext of sovereign immunity on which to rule. A charge of being “pro-gun” won’t stick on her. Other judges will use whichever pretext to achieve the prudent outcome; the pretext that will stand up to scrutiny and will do the least harm to their carrears as wind direction shifts.
I went to the University of Florida from 1998 to 2004 (undergrad and grad) as a legal adult. I carried near every day I was there considering the student murders from the years just prior to my arrival. It wasn’t legal then and it’s not legal now if I’m correct. But rather get thrown out and get a degree elsewhere if i had to, then risk my life. And guess what, no one knew, and no one was spontaneously murdered by my gun going on a rampage all by itself. I’m also guessing mine wasn’t the only one on campus, and isn’t the only one on campus now. They just don’t get it that saying you can’t, doesn’t magically bar them from being there.
You got lucky your gun wasn’t blood thirsty like some of them are. 😉
Ah, the law of the unintended consequences comes back to haunt the socialist academia – they wanted government control of education; they got it!
If in America and taking a single cent of tax dollars, then there is only one relevant document here. The Constitution. Period.
After the law was changed I visited my daughter on campus several times. I was glad I didn’t have to leave my gun in the car where it was much more likely to be stolen, which is what I had to do previously. Idiot leftist professors don’t care if evil thugs arm themselves with guns stolen from card which happens frequently here in Georgia.
Yeah campus carry passed, but the last visit I had to the ole’ alma matter surprised me. Every single building had 30.06 and 30.07 signs posted. So while campus carry is allowed, you can’t carry in the buildings…
Go figure. I live in TX by the way.
I thought public schools in Texas were allowed to enact ‘reasonable rules’, including designation some high risk buildings as gun free zones (to keep them high risk I guess), not ‘enact a global ban on weapons in all buildings’.
The law ended CC ban, but allowed to keep some special, high risk buildings off limits. So now every building is special, high risk, snowflake when it comes to gun carry.
Did anyone expect anything else from the ivory tower types?
Once more, with feeling…
If you think the law should be something different change the law. (That means passing a law through those legislature things. Every single jurisdiction in the US defines a procedure for *making law* within their authority.)
If you think the scope of the law should be something different, more or less, change the charter: the scope of what the law may address. (That means amending a constitution. Every single constitution and charter that allocates legal authority in the US defines a procedure for amending it.)
Interestingly, procedures for adjusting laws and charters in the US require broad consensus, under the notions that:
– Broad consensus among the (voluntarily self-)governed is pretty much required for something to be voluntary self-government.
– Absence of broad consensus under the governed doesn’t work out real well for laws. Ask any dictator; overlord minority, or even energetic do-gooders like passed alcohol prohibition as an amendment to the US constitution.
– An energetic minority hijacking the machinery of government to impose their wacky preferences on everyone else just isn’t a good look. Really. Doesn’t even go with tinfoil hats well.
Suing agents of the people for enforcing laws, and orchestrating government to align with the people governed is, well, The Gang of Six are free to audition to make a “Professor Knows Best” movie if that’s their kink. However the good people of Georgia have declared that that’s just not their thing. Once they use the safe word, you have to stop.
Are there not sexual assault and Title IX procedures? Surely there’s some under-utilized (not that there’s anything wrong with that) administrator in Georgian higher ed who’s up to take this on. Summon the tribunal.
“Show us where the bad professor touched you.”
“Right here, on my gun!”
Simple solution – Stop all state money to those schools and tell them they can do what they want, but only with money they raise themselves. When they have to raise tuition up to cover lost state money, then they can suffer the consequences.
Taxpayers should not have to support universities.
Whelp, looks like the Texas case appeal was rejected by the Fifth Circuit Court:
http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/17/17-50641-CV0.pdf
This will help the situation in Georgia.
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