A sign that guns-on-campus push may fall short
Just finished a conversation with state Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour, R-Snellville, who asked his chamber today to delay action on SB 350, his bill to require law enforcement to return weapons used in crimes to their owners – at least, the innocent ones.
Let’s say a pistol stolen in a burglary is later used to rob a convenience store. Under this measure, ultimately, that piece would be returned to its legal owner. Not a big deal.
The bill is more significant for what it doesn’t contain. Four years ago, Balfour was a key figure in the business-backed fight against a bill pushed by the National Rifle Association that would have allowed legal gun-owners to keep firearms in locked cars on their employers’ parking lots.
It was a very large fight, very nasty, pitting property rights against gun rights. Balfour was the fellow who applied the coup de grace to the legislation.
But in the four years’ since, the Senate rules chairman has had a change of heart – the result, he said, of a conversation with NRA chief Wayne LaPierre, who made this point: “If every business owner said you can’t have a gun in their parking lot, the only place you could have a gun is at home.”
As long as you didn’t rent.
“You could drive around with a gun in your car – as long as you didn’t stop,” Balfour said. In any case, the rules chairman said, the number of gunowners who keep firearms in their cars despite company rules or – in some cases, actual laws — is infinite. In essence, regardless of current statutes, guns in parking lots have become a Second Amendment version of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
So why isn’t Balfour’s change of heart contained in his legislation? Because, the rules chairman said, it is still a delicate issue among key GOP constituencies – chambers of commerce and Second Amendment enthusiasts. The Senate Republican caucus hasn’t reached a consensus on the issue, he said.
Let us offer another possibility. The largest gun issue hanging over the Legislature this year is the demand for the right of college students (over the age of 21) to legally carry concealed weapons – on their persons – on public university campuses. Fueled by a number of robberies and assaults on and around the Georgia Tech campus. University officialdom has lobbied heavily against it.
Balfour won’t even concede that campus-carry is a matter for discussion. “I don’t hear that conversation in the Senate at all,” he said.
So let us review.
The man in charge of the flow of legislation in the state Senate may have just told gun-rights supporters what legislation might be within reach this year, with some significant persuading of his fellow GOP lawmakers. He also may have just told them what is impossible.
- By Jim Galloway, Political Insider
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68 comments Add your comment
Alex
February 28th, 2012
10:34 pm
@Wafflehouseillumanti, I respect your private property rights, which is why if you ask me not come into your private property while carrying, I will opt to not come on to your property. My desire to carry the tools necessary to defend myself trump my desire to patronize any place that does not respect my desire to protect myself, that being said, my vehicle is my private property and I should not face penalty for keeping a firearm secured within my private property.
Alex
February 28th, 2012
10:38 pm
@honested, I do not carry to attract girls. Though I do find it difficult to date a girl who is not comfortable with me carrying my firearm. On that note, I do find it important to make sure I am able to protect myself and my date if the need should arise. I will say though, most the girls I date do like my sidearm and I do enjoy taking them to the gun range.
BIg Hat
February 28th, 2012
10:47 pm
When everyone has a gun, we won’t need cops; or judges, juries, courthouses, jails, prison guards, district attorneys, court-appointed defense lawyers, sheriffs, deputies, bailiffs or other losers like them that suck off the public dole. The cost savings would be incredible, there would be less government and these sponges would have real jobs like the rest of us. More guns equals less government, and people can settle their problems the 2nd Amendment way, the American way.
George Hills
February 28th, 2012
11:38 pm
The real villain in the gun piece is Newt Gingrich.
Mr. Gingrich helped pass the 1996 misdemeanor gun ban in Congress, hiding it in a 750-page last-minute budget bill. Many people in his district stayed mad until he quit in 1998. Only a fool would vote for him now.
g
February 29th, 2012
12:03 am
@cobb republican
you weren’t denied the right to protect yourself you were denied the right to a deadly weapon in a learning environment. be a man and learn to protect yourself using yourself.
GA Jr Shooting Sports
February 29th, 2012
1:39 am
honested
“As a long time NRA (gun manufacturers lobby) and owner of numerous firearms, nobody carrying a firearm (employee or customer) is welcome in my business. The only exception is a uniformed Police officer.” So Plain Clothes Detectives are not welcome?
I’m calling You out! Identify yourself / business and stop your cowardly sniping from behind a cloak of secrecy. You’re making inflammatory comments, while touting your alleged ties to the NRA and Manufactures Lobby. I for one will make it a point to shop somewhere else and spend my dollars with a Gun Friendly Manufacturer.
Lets see you in the light of Day.
fire eater
February 29th, 2012
3:18 am
Looks like Republican legislators forgot who elected them…not the Chamber Pot of Corruption but the gun owners of Georgia. Chamber Pot parasites likewise worked to undermine our campaign against illegal aliens.
Gunluvr
February 29th, 2012
3:55 am
To G: He was denied his legal rights under the US Constitution and Ga state law. Fortunately that may be about to change. Also if you want to “protect yourself using yourself” go right ahead but I know the best means that works for me and it’s not martial arts, it’s deadly force with a firearm.
mountain man
February 29th, 2012
6:30 am
You know, carrying guns on college campuses would never have become an issue if criminals were kept in jail for their full sentence before release. Most of the criminals around Georgia Tech just wouldn’t be there.
Edward Ruffin
February 29th, 2012
7:09 am
Anti-Second Amendment idiots never look at facts. Fact is, in the mid to late 1800s in the “wild west” where almost everyone was packing heat there was lower crimes rates than in today’s big cities.
Gunluvr
February 29th, 2012
7:09 am
Yes, anti-gun types have no practical solutions to the continuing attacks around Ga Tech except the continued and tired reactions of “increasing police patrols, walk with a buddy, etc.” Well I’ve got news for them those tactics don’t work. The only thing in that area that a violent criminal will respect is firearms and the valid threat to use them. Because right now those children are defenseless against those predators, they don’t have a chance. This bill will change that.
Cobb Republican
February 29th, 2012
7:09 am
g …. I have several health issues and am not able to go man-on-man any more, actually I couldn’t as a kid either because of these issues. A gun is my only option is a criminal targets me. I can’t punch him, or grapple, etc. The state of Georgia does not trust me to be responsible solely because I’m a student.
Priest
February 29th, 2012
7:15 am
It seems all of you are forgetting the other part of the law here in GA that is in effect and would continue to be in effect….. The whole part about the property owner still having his rights and all…
If a person comes into your business, and you dont want them there for any reason other than their skin colour, sex, religion, etc… you can tell them they need to leave and they MUST. If they do not, they are trespassing and law enforcement will remove them. That would still be the case even if this bill passes. What this bill is doing is protecting employees who want to keep one in their car. Many employers (not Honestead obviously) really could care less as long as you dont bring it in the building. I know many that only have the anti-gun policies in name only because their insurance company will not carry them unless they have that policy anyway.
The easiest way to look at it is this… if you are willing to have the person show up in their car, you should be fine with whatever they might have in that car on a daily basis. If you have an employee that you wouldn’t trust to keep his personal firearm locked up in his car…. you should FIRE HIM because he is an untrustworthy person. The gun has nothing to do with it. You trust someone or you dont. I have fired or not hired many on the basis that I could not trust them, i didnt have proof they were untrustworthy, but my gut told me they were not.
Gunluvr
February 29th, 2012
7:21 am
I can live with that and so can most business owners.
Michael
February 29th, 2012
11:54 am
I just wonder why the pro-gun folks assume that armed teachers and other citizens would become gung ho crime fighters. The teachers I know would pull their gun and hide under their desk to protect themselves if the gunmen came in there. Wouldn’t go hunting them down.
My first reaction to crazed gunmen is to hide, not to track him down and take him out. And I’m not killing anyone. 25 years ago when my JOB was to protect a government facility, then yeah, I would shoot you.
Jarhead1982
February 29th, 2012
1:46 pm
Review of US Census shows in 2008 18.4 mil students, 42% of whom are 21 or older in 4,300 schools
BATF 8 mil plus cpl licensee’s
US Census approx 186 mil in population 21 or older = 8 mil/186 mil = 4.3% may be carrying concealed legally
Chance of being near a person carrying concealed
18.4 mil x 42% = 7,728 mil x 4.3% licensed = 332,346 students legally armed / 4,300 schools = 77.28 people per school
18.4 mil / 4300 schools = 4,276 average per school = 77.28/4,276 = 1.8% chance you will be near someone carrying concealed.
The number of illegally concealed firearms being pointed out by School, principles, students, teachers are in the thousands, uh no, hundreds, uh no, tens, uh no? Come on people you cant even identify the bad guys carrying concealed but you want to b-e-e-t-c-h about the law abding doing so, hypocrites that are afraid of the mythical boogeyman, a childhood monster whom they cant describe, or demonstrate to exist.
Now lets review what the risk being near a person lawfully carrying concealed and compare them to someone supposedly safe, say a doctor.
VPC an anti gun organization of one, posted a report in 2009 where they claimed over 3 years the 8 mil cpl licensee’s killed 137 people illegally, 45 per year or .00000562 per licensee.
JAMA Journal of American Medical Association Medical Malpractice 2001 report showed 700k doctors in the US killed 44,000 to 98,000 per year due to medical malpractice or .065 to .14 deaths per doctor.
.065 to .14 /.00000562 = 12,000 to 25,000 times more likely a doctor is to kill you than a cpl licensee.
So what again is the risk of a person who may be near you 1.8% of the time, is 12,000 to 25,000 times less likley to kill than your doctor, and you cant even see to begin with?
Get back to us when you grow up and have something other than being afraid of the mythical boogeyman to substantiate your ka ka beliefs.
Jarhead1982
February 29th, 2012
1:57 pm
College Station, Georgia, May 4th, 2009, two thugs break into an off campus party to rob the partiers and while one prepares to rape one of the women, is overheard discussing with the other thug that they had enough bullets to do the job. One of the partiers retrieves his handgun, killing one and sending the other fleeing crapping his shorts.
10 people who would have been murdered saved.
Shoney’s Alliston AL 1991
Pearl High School Pearl MS 1997
Appalachian Law School 2002
New Life Col Springs Dec 2007
All gun free zones where resistance occurred, 9 times less body count than these 5 infamous shootings in gun free zones
Luby’s Cafeteria TX 1991
Columbine
VA Tech
N Illinois UNiv
FT Hood
Yeah higher body counts are more morally acceptable eh?
Many mnore examples eqach and every day.
Keep & Bear Arms
KC3
Armed Citizen
American Rifleman
Guns save lives
and many more, 80 incidents per month on average, all reported by the police.
Be it schools, business, retraunts, shopping mall, preventing car jackings, etc etc this irrational fear of what you are afraid of lamely being projected upon everyone else is rather pathetic.
So prove the risk exists, rookies!
Gunluvr
February 29th, 2012
3:10 pm
To Michael: I don’t think people want to be heroes and a large number would probably react just how you indicated but now people aren’t allowed that option due to the current law, so that has to change.