“I’m not a fan of campus carry,” Michael Hughes, director of Stoddard’s Range and Guns pistol match, said. “I’ve seen so many people come and go in [competitive shooting] that I’m quite confident to say there are a whole lot of people that should never touch a gun.”
In wake of recent Georgia State shootings, attention shifted to the campus carry policy, legalized in Georgia on July 1, 2017, which allows anyone properly licensed in the state to carry a handgun in a concealed manner.
Georgia State provides information regarding campus carry on their website but has not promoted gun safety.
Hughes directs the competitive International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA) matches at Stoddard’s Range and Guns in Midtown every Wednesday at 6 p.m. and advocates gun safety and self-defense.
“The concept is to simulate what would happen in a parking lot or parking center and it’s timed, so it’s a competition,” Ken Baye, owner of Stoddard’s Range and Guns, said. “And they’re using techniques that one might use in a self-defense situation.”
The IDPA sets up various self-defense obstacle courses: eight cardboard targets, wooden barricades, nets strewn between barricades and blue tarps incised for gunfire.
Ten men and one woman competed.
“I got a Glock 19 for my thirtieth birthday,” Renee Alyworth, an IDPA match contender, said. “I felt like [competitive shooting] would be a good way to use it. I thought target practice was kind of boring, but this was fun.”
Alyworth, equipped with protective earmuffs and glasses, stood at starting position, facing a wooden barricade. A dress shirt covered her pistol holster and magazine cartridges. Hughes stood a couple feet behind with a timer.
“[IDPA’s setup] utilizes self-defense principles like shooting behind cover and shooting with a garment on, so you have to move the garment to get the gun, learning to reload quickly,” Hughes said. “You shoot the zero zones. You take a raw time and add to it the number of seconds with your score.”
Hughes pressed the timer.
Alyworth swatted the dress shirt hem from the holster, grabbed the Glock with her left hand and quickly shifted it to her right hand so she could grab the magazine and load the pistol.
“You think you can stand in a range and shoot a gun and hit a target,” Hughes said. “But as soon as somebody puts a clock on you out there … [peoples’] minds go blank.”
Alyworth was not one of those people. She planted her feet squarely behind the barricade, knees bent, shoulders edging around the corner for aim.
One shot fired. Then a second.
She shuffled left to right behind an adjacent wooden board. The other contenders stood some distance behind, following her run.
Alyworth popped her shoulders out of the barricade’s pocket, firing another couple of bullets, and sifted between nets, wooden planks and barrels to the final targets.
The last targets hit, Hughes pressed the timer and a Stoddard’s employee swept the brass-jacket cartridges into a dustpan.
Alyworth holstered her pistol and rejoined the group of contenders, spectating the last couple of runs.
Hughes followed the remaining contenders at a measured pace, keeping a distance, but also close enough to observe their handle on the pistol to ensure safety.
“We’ve had to send people home and tell them to look at themselves in the mirror and say ‘Am I really the kind of person that needs to be doing this,’” Hughes said. “Under pressure you’ve got an explosive device that can cause immense damage.”
Most of the contenders moved calm and collected through the course. However, this has not always been the case.
“There was one college professor, and he was one of the [most] dangerous people I’ve ever seen [with a pistol]. He would come up with some philosophical argument about it,” Hughes said. “I would say, ‘No. This is not [theory]. When you turn the gun on someone, it becomes real.’”
During the contenders’ runs, regulation requires them to hold the pistol in front of the taped line. If your pistol passes the line, you’re out.
“This why you want to learn how to handle yourself under pressure, and this is not even under pressure. People lose their minds,” Hughes said. “Cops even do it. They shoot in the range, they think they know what they’re doing, but they get in the scene and think ‘What if he’s got a gun. Oh, no. That was a cellphone.’”
A study shows anxiety decreased the time officers look at their target and their attention focused more on threatening cues. A separate study showed ‘reality-based’ training improved officer performance under anxiety.
“[College] is the cockiest time in your whole life. I know I was,” Hughes said. “If you carry a gun, you have to take the responsibility of life and death, and not just yours, but everybody around you.”
That’s a lot to ask of Georgia State students who have enough stress as is.
“Very kind, noble people make horrible mistakes with a gun that ruins everybody’s life,” Hughes said. “If I ever made a safety mistake where I were to accidentally fire my gun, drop it in a public place, or God forbid, shoot myself or somebody else, I would never touch one again. I would never even consider it.”
Four out of ten self-defense handgun owners have received no formal training. Despite this, firearms awareness has shown some success reducing incidents.
“[Georgia State] creates safety awareness and basic crime prevention as far as the campus, but not specific to the gun carry,” Crystal Turnage, a Georgia State police officer, said.
Colleges rarely implement gun-safety programs, though several colleges offer trapshooting, or competitive clay pigeon shooting.
“Everyone should go through some training,” Hughes said. “When you carry a gun, you need a cool head to use it.”
Georgia State promotes campus safety, having recently offered training regarding active shooters on campus, but has not initiated any gun safety or education programs on guns in and of themselves.
“We have no actual program in place and I don’t see one happening,” Turnage said.
