Melissa Cruz

When 22-year-old Kit Crawford entered the grocery store of his suburban hometown of Peachtree City, Ga. in mid-June to pick up food for his newborn, the last thing he expected to see was a young man with a gun on his hip trailing behind him.

“I felt extremely uncomfortable and not particularly safe,” Crawford says. “One of the oddest parts was that even in his body language it was clear that he wasn’t comfortable walking around with a gun either. You could tell he felt self-conscious about it.”

With the implementation of Georgia’s new open-carry gun law on July 1 aptly dubbed by opponents as the “guns everywhere” law, it has become that much easier for residents to do just that: take guns just about everywhere.

Declared by the National Rifle Association as the “most comprehensive pro-gun reform legislation introduced in recent history,” Georgia’s Safe Carry Protection Act has granted licensed gun owners the ability to carry their weapons in many previously off-limit areas.

These areas include bars, restaurants, nightclubs, churches, some government buildings, certain zones in primary and secondary schools and non-secure sections of Atlanta’s airport. School staff members can be appointed by their districts to carry guns in safety zones, on school-provided transportation and at school functions.

According to The Washington Post, the law expands Georgia’s “Stand Your Ground” law, allowing for the use of banned firearms in defense claims and does away with state-mandated record-keeping of the sales and purchases of firearms. No multi-jurisdiction databases can be maintained on permit holders, all public housing must accept legal firearm possession and the governor cannot cease or cap off the sales or carrying of guns.

Georgia’s college campuses will also see a change — permit holders caught with guns at unlawful sections of the school will be penalized with a fine, as opposed to a misdemeanor charge. The fine will depend on the circumstances of the gun possession. Students with permits may, however, have guns on campus in car loops areas, as well as in a vehicle that is parked or in transit through a school safety zone. As defined in the legislation, a “school safety zone” is: “real property owned by or leased to any public or private… campus of any college [or] university.”

Despite these changes, some universities seem to accept this law may just be a part of Southern culture.

Georgia State University’s Chief of Police Connie Sampson said there would be no heightened security or direct changes to campus procedures because of the new law.



“Of course we ask people to be careful and cautious of their surroundings, but we live in the South. We’re expecting people to have guns whether they’re legal or not,” he says.

Some have approached the situation differently. Laura King, a graduate research assistant at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Duke University alumna, believes the reduced restrictions on guns could create a less positive, effective learning environment for college students and faculty. She thinks making professors a “de facto deputy weakens their more critical roles.”

“I will be less comfortable addressing certain behavioral problems in class with students, given an unknown and potentially increased risk that I perceive. Teachers will need much more backup if they are in potentially greater danger, and we are not equipped right now to train them,” King says. “TAs at Georgia Tech are also often foreign students and this will be a substantial added challenge for them, and potentially put a damper on them attending at all.”

These feelings span grade levels, too. Kalie Aiken, a graduate from Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Ga. andsixth grade math teacher, thinks putting guns in the hands of teachers could also be dangerous.

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“I believe that [arming teachers] puts students more at risk. If there was ever a situation in which a teacher might be prompted to use a firearm, there is no guarantee for the proper use and the safety of the children,” she says.

Many officials in the state had similar sentiments, as well. As reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed declared the city a “gun-free zone” 17 hours after the law went into effect, banning firearms from recreation centers and government facilities with screen entrants, as well as notifying most city employees that they do not have the authority to carry guns on the job.

So despite backing from the NRA, Gov. Nathan Deal’s decision to pass the law has been an overwhelmingly unpopular one among many Georgians.

According to polls conducted by The Atlanta Journal Constitution, 70% of residents opposed the bill. However, 57% of those polled believed owning a gun helps protect people and 55% said they or someone they know owns a gun. Even still, the feelings toward the Safe Carry Protection Act have been mostly negative, with Georgia law enforcement, municipal leaders, county commissioners and the Transportation Security Administration opposing as well, according to an interview with Americans for Responsible Solutions on CNN.

However, some Georgia residents are nevertheless supportive of the law. Ashley Sanchez, a graduate from the University of Georgia in Athens, Ga. says she and her husband carry a gun most of the time and make sure it is done “properly, legally and respectfully to others.”

Sanchez argues that when used responsibly, concealed weapons allow for greater personal protection. “Being able to conceal carry in additional places is a plus for us. We protect ourselves and assume others will do the same,” she says. “When you are given your permit, you are given the ability to protect yourself — not be a vigilante. We are always trying to be responsible citizens and the weapon doesn’t change our behavior at all.”

The law already had its first mishap on the same day it went into effect, as reported by The Valdosta Daily Times. Two men carrying licensed guns in a Valdosta, Ga. convenience store on July 1 got into an argument when one man demanded to see the other’s permit to carry. When the man refused to produce his permit, the second drew his gun. The incident has been repeatedly described by sites like Gawker and Daily Kos as though it were plucked directly from the Wild West, and ultimately resulted in an arrest of one of the men, Ronald Williams, by the Valdosta Police Department.

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Though provisions allow establishment owners some say on whether or not guns will be allowed on their premises, there has been confusion regarding what they and employees may do, if anything, when a customer brings a gun onto the property. For instance, patrons of a bar may bring in a gun so long as they do not drink.

Kathleen Smith, a Valdosta State University graduate student, says she has encountered drunk customers who have brandished weapons while working at a local bar.

“Since the new law, I have seen two intoxicated customers at the bar pull out their guns to show off to their friends … It made me feel very unsafe,” she says. “I was not sure how to deal with the situation… After talking to my boss, he told me that there is not much they can do about it, since it is a new law.”

Though Smith supports the right to carry handguns wherever necessary, she does not think bars are the safest location for them.



“If you are under the influence and feel threatened, then the gun might come out a lot quicker than in a normal situation, which is very dangerous.”

In incidents like these, it can be hard for management to distinguish who does or does not have the right to carry a gun. No one — business owners and police officers alike — is allowed to ask for proof of a permit unless they witness the gun owner explicitly committing a crime.

Kit Crawford says it is these discrepancies with the law that has made him oppose it, especially following his experience at the Georgia grocery store.

“Before the encounter, I didn’t really feel too strongly either way about the law…Now, I’m not supportive of it — at least not as it currently is. I don’t think it’s going to do what it’s been put in place for,” he says.

“If the goal is to protect people, I think it would make sense for there to be less people walking around with guns, not more. I think history has shown that a safer community comes through better education and more opportunities, not paranoia and arming ourselves to the teeth.”



Melissa Cruz is a rising senior at Georgia State University.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.