Photo Credit: Joshua L. Jones/file

A campus carry protest Mar. 21 on the UGA campus.

While most Athens residents would prefer to talk about repealing campus carry, an influential gun-rights group will be lobbying state legislators to expand the law next year.

Buried in AJC political reporter Jim Galloway's Sunday column are these words from John Monroe, vice president of GeorgiaCarry.org:

Monroe said the top priority for GeorgiaCarry.org next year would be the state’s new law permitting concealed weaponry in some – but not all – areas on public university campuses.

Gov. Nathan Deal had vetoed a similar bill in 2016, on the grounds that it would have permitted concealed firearms in sensitive areas such as university day care centers. The 2017 version won the governor’s approval. Among the university areas that remain off-limits to guns: Day care centers, dormitories and classrooms where high school students are present.

“I’d like to see it a lot more simplified, so that a person who wants to carry and wants to follow the law can do it without keeping a rule book and a list of buildings,” Monroe said.

GeorgiaCarry.org will advocate the elimination of all restrictions on carrying concealed weapons on public campuses – and more besides. Monroe wants private colleges and universities subject to the campus-carry law, too. Places like Emory University and Agnes Scott College.

Meanwhile, the AJC reported Nov. 27 that a Fulton County judge would be ruling soon on a lawsuit filed by six professors (including three from UGA) seeking to overturn campus carry.