Fourteen Student Government Association senators tried to stick to their guns at Tuesday’s Senate meeting, but despite their efforts, the body passed a resolution opposing the state Senate bill that allows guns on campus.

Georgia Senate Bill 308 — passed March 24 — abolishes the “school safety zone” that prohibited weapons within 1,000 feet of any college’s campus. The House of Representatives read the bill and has yet to hand it off to a committee. The bill could die if the House doesn’t pass it before the end of this legislative session.

Katie Barlow

The SGA Senate resolution opposes the state legislation as it is now and will oppose it if it is passed.

Because SB 308 allows individual institutions to regulate the carrying of weapons on their own campuses, the SGA resolution also urges the Board of Regents and University administration to continue banning them. SGA President Katie Barlow said because 26 University System of Georgia presidents, including University President Michael Adams, signed a letter opposing SB 308, the University is unlikely to allow weapons.

“The leaders make a strong stance across the board,” she said.

Still, 14 SGA senators oppose banning weapons on campus.

Stephen Thompson, who is running for SGA vice president with The Snapshot team and who voted against the SGA resolution, said students may go hunting on the weekend and accidentally leave guns in their cars.

“They’d get in massive amounts of trouble,” he said.

However, Katie Dean Williams, Grady College senator, said the focus of the debate should be on protecting responsible students rather than those who would leave lethal weapons in their cars.

Chris Green, College of Education senator, supports SB 308 because he said the 1,000-foot rule is too restrictive for someone carrying a weapon.

“I’ve lived here 20 years, and it is very difficult not to cross in and out of campus,” he said.

Yet living in a college town with a lively downtown scene can pose problems, some senators said.

Tyler Biringer, a Franklin College senator, said he wouldn’t want weapons to be allowed near campus because Broad Street bars are so close.

“Fights happen every night, every week,” he said. “God knows what could happen.”

Some senators raised the objection that if weapons were allowed on campus, they would be in classrooms and dorms. 

Evan Thompson, a freshman international affairs major from Richmond Hill, said the senators in opposition to SB 308 were missing some key information.

“You have to be 21 to have a licensed firearm and conceal it,” he said. “Dorms are very vulnerable to theft, but I can very generally say that most students over 21 don’t live in dorms.”

Logan Krusac, a Franklin College senator, said allowing more guns doesn’t equal more safety. Even if gun permit holders only use their weapons in self-defense, someone else could take a gun from them.

Bobby Andres, president of the University’s Young Democrats, and Wesley Robinson, Greek Outreach director of College Republicans, attended the Senate meeting.

Robinson said students should have the right to carry weapons.

“But we’re not for having guns in the classroom,” he said.

Andres said he is not morally opposed to anyone owning a gun. He just wants to see fewer.

“If we want to be safer in society, we need fewer guns, not more,” he said.

The SGA Senate also passed three other resolutions.

After personal testimony from students in the University Lambda Alliance, the senators unanimously voted to recommend amending the University Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy to include “gender expression and identity” in its list of prohibited biases.

The senators also voted unanimously to encourage the Office of International Education and the University to allow students traveling to countries listed in the U.S. State Department’s travel warning list to use institutional funds.

Finally, the Senate voted to include a vote of confidence on the ballot in the SGA elections beginning April 5.

Normally, this vote of confidence — which asks students to vote on whether to keep SGA or abolish it — is taken every four years.

However, Barlow’s administration promised to include this at the end of its year as part of its platform of accountability.

If two-thirds of voters respond negatively, SGA would be disbanded. If it is disbanded, though, the vote would take place again next year according to the four-year rule.