While seeking to address the issue of campus safety, House Bill 859 falls short. Universities are microcosms of society, challenging the proverbial ivory tower to address the same criminal elements plaguing communities. Data indicate that adding guns to these scenarios typically puts the gun owner at risk. Former Atlanta physician and researcher Dr. Arthur Kellermann, MPH, notes in a 1995 study that home invaders were twice as likely to take homeowners’ handguns than for them to be used in self-defense. His research also indicates that gun ownership increases the risk of homicide and suicide in the home. For those advocating guns as a means of protection, with upward of 350 million of them now outnumbering the U.S. population, National Crime Victimization Survey data (2007-2011) cites that 99.2 percent of crime victims did not defend themselves with their guns.
The Constitution rightly affords responsible adults the right to bear arms. Proponents of concealed campus carry who focus solely on this provision are misguided. The critical focus, especially for academia, must be the conditions under which this right is afforded. In an October 2015 The Philadelphia Inquirer article, Dr. Garen Wintemute, MPH, founding director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California-Davis, points out that alcohol intoxication is strongly associated with the risk of committing firearm violence. Numerous studies indicate that access to firearms is a predictor of fatality in cases of dating and domestic violence — we know the incidence is highest among women ages 16-24 in dating relationships — increasing this outcome by as much as 500 percent. It is therefore unwise to support the presence of firearms, concealed or not, among a population segment plagued nationwide by alcohol misuse and dating violence.
Some will argue, legitimately so, that 21-year-olds are responsible for their own actions. On college campuses, however, gun-toting 21-year-olds are tied — academically, socially, culturally, emotionally and spatially — to classmates as young as 17, many away from the structure of home and family for the first time.
As a veteran higher education administrator and the parent of a college graduate, I have never observed an on-campus big game hunt. Therefore, I can fathom no good reason for HB859. If passed in the Georgia Senate, it would prove a challenge to every family demanding a safe campus environment for their sons and daughters.
Legendary Atlanta University administrator and faculty member W.E.B. Du Bois wrote that the function of a university is “above all to be the organ of that fine adjustment … which forms the secret of civilization.” The appropriate adjustment, I submit, is not found in the concealed carry of a handgun, but in the cogent exchange of ideas that matter, including mitigating the causes of crime and violence.
At Clark Atlanta University, a private institution not subject to this legislation, we will continue to pursue this approach, which includes conflict resolution and training as a means to prevent violence, rather than espousing guns as a reaction to it. Our hope is that every campus will follow this constructive course.
About the Author
