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Professors, faculty, clerks, and a few students flock to a classroom at Georgia Tech University in Atlanta. You’re here for a security seminar, since July 1st, Georgia students have been allowed to bring pistols into class. That says a new gun law called “Campus Carry”. It’s a win for the gun lobby because universities are actually very safe in Georgia.
Lynn Durham is vice president of the university and tries to calm the ranks of the tense audience. Georgia is the eleventh state in the US with a campus carry law. Many professors opposed this, but the Republican government ignored them. She thinks that students who are over 21 years old and want to defend themselves with pistols against attacks on the way to the lecture hall should have this right. Now the professors are forced to prepare for an armed student body.
Safe campus with Campus Carry
Vice President Durham looks into the crowd and sees concern. Some have strong emotions, she says appreciatively, but whether you are for or against campus carry doesn’t matter, she says, because it is now the law. The goal is now a safe campus with campus carry.
The police chief of the university, Robert Connolly, explains to the attendees exactly which weapons are allowed. Only pistols, no rifles. And they must not be worn visibly. Facundo Fernandez sits in the first row. He has been a chemistry professor at the university for 15 years.
He doesn’t feel safe now, he says, and would like three tips from the police chief for professors. Because they are not allowed to carry weapons. They are sitting in their offices, Fernandez fears, waiting for armed students. The police chief has no easy answer to this. While the law prohibits pistols in professors’ offices, that is not enough for Fernandez. The fear that a student might go nuts with a gun is just there.
Angry students hit the table
He has had many angry students in his office who complained about a grade, says Professor Fernandez. They would have slapped the table angrily.
James Turner is also discussing the effects of Campus Carry on his office with colleagues. He is an employee and also wants to bring a pistol, but he is not allowed to. He thinks it’s a bad law.
He could walk around with two pistols and a glazed gaze, with no problem. But he couldn’t keep a pistol in a locked drawer in his office. In case something should happen.
Gunman killed 32 people in Virginia in 2007
Everyone here knows that mass shootings also happened at universities in the United States. The worst was at Virginia Tech in 2007, where a gunman killed 32 people.
On the other hand, one student who can’t wait to finally carry his pistol to class is Michael Robinson. He wanted Campus Carry for self-defense ever since he got his gun license. Campus Carry has made some fundamental changes for professors at Georgia public universities, says chemistry professor Fernandez. He says, like cops, professors should now just accept the risk as part of their job.
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