Gun rights advocates are eager to use their majority in the General Assembly to burnish Georgia’s reputation as one of the friendliest states to gun owners, with passage all but certain of a sweeping gun bill this year that will notably loosen firearms restrictions in the state.
Final details are expected to be hammered out over the first few weeks of this year’s legislative session, which starts Monday. Broad points were agreed to last year, although proponents must still bridge a rift over whether to allow students to carry concealed weapons on the more than 50 campuses of the state’s university and technical college systems — a prospect staunchly opposed by the state’s powerful Board of Regents and other higher education leaders.
“It will come a little sooner than later,” state Sen. Frank Ginn, R-Danielsville, said of an expected agreement this year. “I’d like to get a good bill passed for our citizens.”
The so-called “campus carry” provision has long stymied groups pushing to broaden firearms access statewide. They thought it was within their grasp last year, until the rift torpedoed a proposed compromise between the House and Senate that hit lawmakers’ desks less than an hour before the legislative session came to a frantic end March 28.
That left a sour taste in some mouths: House and Senate negotiators let the 2013 session fade into memory before beginning talks again, under the watch of Gov. Nathan Deal’s office. Either of the gun bills that neared final passage last year — Senate Bill 101 or House Bill 512 — could be revived, or a completely new bill could be drafted.
House Public Safety Committee Chairman Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, said progress is being made.
“We are cleaning up the language, cleaning up parts of the bill that were a concern in the last days of the (2013) session,” Powell said. “We’re cleaning up some of the mental health language in there, and there will be a bill.”
The bill would strengthen the rules about how people with mental illness qualify for a weapons “carry” license.
SB 101 — which came the closest to passage last year — would also have let churches allow guns in sanctuaries, school boards to arm school administrators and military veterans younger than 21 to carry weapons.
State lawmakers last expanded where Georgians with concealed-carry permits can take their guns in 2010. That expansion was a major victory for gun rights advocates, although subsequent court rulings excluded churches, colleges and schools from the concealed-carry law.
Today, guns can be carried into bars, but only with the permission of the bar owners. The state’s concealed-carry law prohibits anyone younger than 21 from carrying a gun. College students may store weapons in locked cars on campus, but they are barred from carrying them anywhere on campus.
Now, while Powell noted there have been some disagreements over the mental health language, those concerns have been minor compared with the fight over campus carry. One possible compromise that has emerged is a recommendation that would allow the state’s private colleges and universities — and only the state’s private colleges — the option to allow students to carry weapons on campus.
Gun rights groups, however, have also pushed hard for lawmakers to make the Board of Regents allow armed students at public colleges and universities. That stance has been backed by state Rep. John Meadows, R-Calhoun, the powerful chairman of the House Rules Committee and a co-sponsor of HB 512. Meadows gave a passionate speech on the floor last year in defense of students who want to arm themselves for safety.
In the final days of last year’s session, House and Senate negotiators had agreed, after Deal stepped in, to allow concealed weapons permit holders to carry weapons on college campuses with the stipulation that permit holders between the ages of 21 and 25 would have to complete an eight-hour safety course first.
At the last minute, however, senators told House negotiators they wanted to require anyone, regardless of age, to complete the safety course before being allowed to carry a firearm on campus.
The change, as well as confusion over just how it would be implemented, killed the deal — perhaps not accidentally. The Senate’s position against the campus-carry provision had strong support from members of the state Board of Regents, which governs the state’s powerful University System of Georgia; University System Chancellor Hank Huckaby, a former legislator who still holds sway with colleagues in the state Legislature; and Ron Jackson, the commissioner of the Technical College System of Georgia.
The systems’ position has not changed, but Jerry Henry, executive director of the 7,300-member Georgia Carry advocacy group, said his members still back the House’s effort to include the provision and would look to Meadows about whether to compromise.
“If John Meadows wouldn’t, then we wouldn’t,” Henry said. “If he’s willing to take it out, we’re willing to discuss it.”
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