The Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging a 2017 statute that declared public college and universities were no longer “school safety zones.”
These “gun-free” areas have been repeatedly shown to only be effective in stripping away the rights of students and others to protect themselves from violent criminals. Still, anti-gun zealots persist in targeting specific areas to eradicate the Second Amendment.
This time it was five University System of Georgia professors. Their failed argument was that the law allowing campus carry was unconstitutional because it interfered with the Board of Regents’ ability to govern the university system. The state countered with a motion to dismiss the suit.
In the ruling, the Peach State’s high court held that the campus carry policy passed by the university system’s Board of Regents closely followed the original 2017 state law.
In other words, the lawsuit challenging campus carry in Georgia was moot. The decision by the justices was unanimous.
It was that year when then-Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal signed into law a statute allowing the carry — and concealed carry — of firearms on university and college campuses.
Georgia lawmakers have since decided that lawful gun owners do not need a license for concealed carry, though they must still undergo mandatory federal background checks.
Georgia universities and colleges now post on their websites, “Lawful weapons carriers may carry concealed handguns in public university classes if they are conducted in buildings and facilities otherwise exempt from the law.
Weapons are prohibited in student housing across the system.
The filing by the professors argued that the university system’s policy change was “coerced” by the 2017 law. They also insisted that the state law violated the separation of powers which could not be nullified because the Board approved the new policy.
That stand, the state Supreme Court determined, was meaningless because the only consideration to be determined was whether the law interfered with the authority of the Board of Regents to operate higher education in Georgia.
Justice John J. Ellington wrote the court’s unanimous decision. “In determining that this action by the Board moots the professors’ challenge to the 2017 amendment, we do not concern ourselves with why the Board took this action. We do not look behind the exercise of government power to determine the subjective reasons — legal, political, or otherwise — for a particular action, so long as the action was within the government actor’s authority.”
Ellington added that the question of why the Board enacted the policy is irrelevant, only that it had the authority to do so.
The decision echoed a previous ruling by a Fulton County judge against the professor. They concluded that not only did the five professors not have legal standing to bring the suit, but their action was prohibited by sovereign immunity.
The high court reiterated this decision, confirming that the Board of Regents created a policy that aligned with the 2017 law.
Before that law took effect, it was a misdemeanor to carry or possess a firearm in buildings or on property owned or leased by the university system.
The Georgia Supreme Court got it right and turned back yet another attempt to strip the right to keep and bear arms from law-abiding citizens. At every turn, forces against the Second Amendment carelessly fling charges at these rights regardless of facts and common sense.
Not only have there not been incidents where legal campus carry resulted in violence, but there have been enough criminal attacks on students to clearly justify the need for self-defense.
These laws are becoming more common across the nation, and there is no outbreak of student violence on campuses as a result. Instead, as Michigan State and other instances proved, the ability for students to lawfully defend themselves is necessary and wise.
