Jasperse, however, said an armed robbery on the Georgia Tech campus on Tuesday highlighted the need for concealed carry legislation for college campuses.
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Addressing the idea that the desire to prevent campus shootings had sparked Georgia’s legislation, Deal suggested that the state’s General Assembly consider stiffening the penalty for the unauthorized possession or use of a firearm on college grounds as one way to deter such crimes. “To depart from such time honored protections should require overwhelming justification”, the governor said in a statement announcing his veto decision. “I do not find that such justification exists”.
The bill would have allowed anyone over the age of 20 with a concealed carry permit to bring concealed handguns onto public college campuses. The bill would have allowed guns in classrooms, but barred them from dorms, Greek housing, and athletic events.
But Deal did sign another campus weapons bill, House Bill 792, which will allow anyone 18 years and older to carry a stun gun on campus.
On Tuesday, he referred back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison opposing guns on the University of Virginia campus and to writings by recently deceased U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Both governors had expressed misgivings about the bills introduced in their states, and wanted more flexibility for campuses to set their own rules. Powell declined to discuss the governor’s reason for the veto, after other conservative governors have signed similar legislation.
Second Amendment activists and conservatives cast House Bill 859 framed as a measure for students and members of school communities to protect themselves.
He directed the state’s university system to review ways to improve campus security. But after lawmakers approved it over protests from the powerful Board of Regents, which governs the state university system, and all 29 campuses’ presidents, he asked legislators to exempt on-campus day cares and other spaces.
“I don’t believe that more bullets in the air is a good thing, so I’m glad [Deal] vetoed it”, said Wesley Billiot, a political science student from Louisiana.
As the bill was being debated in the legislature, Deal said major changes needed to be made to the proposal.
University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckaby in a press release expressed strong opposition shortly after the bill was passed by the House during this year’s legislative session.
In issuing the veto, Deal cited an 1824 case during the establishment of the University of Virginia in which officials chose to bar students from “keeping or using weapons or arms of any kind”.
Jerry Henry, executive director of GeorgiaCarry.org, said he was not surprised at the governor’s decision. Deal said Scalia wrote that schools and government buildings should be considered “sensitive places” under the Second Amendment.
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The student newspaper at the University of Georgia reported that 62 percent of students polled there opposed the measure, while a poll at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that students there overwhelmingly disapproved of the bill.
