DALTON – Wesley Ross will return to the Dalton State College campus this fall with a handgun tucked away under this shirt. 

The senior, who celebrated his 21^st birthday last year by going straight to the courthouse to apply for a weapons carry license, can do that now because of a controversial new state law, known as “campus carry,” that allows guns on public college campuses in Georgia. 

But Ross said he’s not exactly excited about it. 

“I don’t want to have to ever use it,” said Ross, a Chatsworth native who grew up hunting with family. “If I have to use it, then that means something has gone wrong.” 

Students and visitors who wish to carry on campus starting July 1 must have a license, which means they have to be at least 21. At Dalton State, at least half of the nearly 6,000 students enrolled this past school year would have been old enough. 

Across the University of Georgia System, more than 184,000 students – or about 58 percent of all students – were old enough to apply for a license in 2015, which is the most recent year for which that information was available.

But it’s unclear how many of the tens of thousands of students who are old enough to carry a gun will actually do so once the law takes effect. Most observers expect it to be a small number. 

“There’s no real way to tell,” said Luke Crawford, who is state director for Georgia Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. 

“The bill is allowing for concealed carry so the whole idea is that even as people are carrying on campus that nobody’s going to know because there’s really no need for anyone to know,” he added. 

The law defines a concealed handgun as one that is “carried in such a fashion that does not actively solicit the attention of others and is not prominently, openly, and intentionally displayed except for purposes of defense of self or others.”

Firearms, however, are still banned from a number of places on campus, such as student housing, daycare centers and sports venues. 

Gun storage facilities will not be provided, and there will be no signage on buildings where guns are prohibited. University system officials say it’s the student’s responsibility to know where guns are allowed.

Failing to keep the firearm out of sight, or to steer clear of areas of campus that remain off limits, is a misdemeanor offense. It can also result in a violation of the school’s student code of conduct or personnel rules. 

“We are primarily focused at this time on ensuring that our faculty and staff understand the changes to the law which become effective July 1,” Margaret Venable, who is Dalton State’s president,said in a statement. 

Students can carry while tailgating but not while in a football stadium. They can take a handgun into a classroom, but they can’t bring it into their professors’ offices. Rooms where disciplinary hearings are held and administrative offices are also still off limits. 

Students will also not be allowed to bring guns into classes where high school students are present. At Dalton State’s main campus, that was nearly one-third of all classes offered in the spring, when 376 high school students were enrolled.

That is a relief to Mikayla Hawkins, a 17-year-old from Ringgold who is part of the Move On When Ready program. But still, she said she’s uneasy knowing that someone next to her in the library, or elsewhere on campus, might have a gun. 

Hawkins said she has a firearm at home but doesn’t see the need to bring it to campus. She’s worried that someone will abuse the law and start openly shooting. 

“That’s my biggest fear,” she said. 

Opponents of the measure say allowing guns on campus increases the chances of something going wrong, even if it’s as innocent as an accidental discharge. More than that, they argue that arming students is not an effective way to improve safety on campuses and that it stifles free debate and thought. 

Supporters, though, argued that law-abiding students and campus visitors, who have gone through background checks, were being denied their constitutional right to defend themselves. 

The measure faced opposition from the state’s university system, some faculty and students, advocacy groups and some local law enforcement, who worry having armed students will add to the chaos if a shooting does occur. 

The new law passed in the final hours of the legislative session this year but only after supporters begrudgingly included a host of exemptions in hopes of avoiding another veto by the governor, which was the fate of a broader version last year. The vote largely fell along party lines. 

Gov. Nathan Deal, who signed the bill in May, said at the time that he did not believe enough had been done to secure the areas surrounding campuses, leaving students vulnerable as they come and go.

“Unfortunately, in parts of the state, the path to higher education travels through dangerous territory,” he wrote in a signing document. 

Georgia is now one of 11 states that allow concealed weapons at colleges and universities. Another 23 states leave the decision to individual institutions. Sixteen states ban guns on campus altogether. 

Crawford said his organization plans to push next year to nix the gun bans on faculty and staff office spaces and classrooms including high school students. Groups that have fought campus carry have already vowed to push back vigorously on any proposals to expand the law. 

Ross, the Dalton State student, says he believes the process of acquiring a license will deter students who perhaps shouldn’t carry a gun on campus. For one, he notes, the average license costs about $75 in Georgia – which is not an insignificant amount for a college student. 

When Ross talks about the need for the law, he often refers to the potential of a mass shooting and concern that such a tragedy could happen anywhere. 

“Everybody feels safe, until it’s too late,” he said.  

An education major, Ross spends much of his time in the Brown Center, which houses the education program and sits on the edge of the north Georgia campus – about a half mile away from the college public safety headquarters. 

“Whether you have that law in place or not, the crazy person who’s going to be a shooter isn’t going to say, ‘Oh wait, I can’t be in here with a gun.’ They don’t care,” Ross said. “If they’re going to shoot up the school, they’re going to do it either way.”

At least now he can fight back, Ross said. 

But that sentiment isn’t widely shared even at Dalton State, which sits in one of the most conservative areas of the state. Reaction on campus leading up the law going into effect mostly ranged from apprehension to indifference. 

“It’s a law out of fear, not out of responsibility,” said Jamie Bennett, a history major who lives in Summerville. “I think there are better ways to handle situations where someone is coming on campus with ill intent than allowing mass people to carry weapons like we’re in the Wild West.”

As an example, Bennett said he would rather see emphasis on training for students on what to do in an active shooter situation or new technology that secures doors from the inside. 

“Those to me are much more effective than students who may not be incredibly responsible for how they handle a weapon in a crisis situation,” said Bennett, who spent 16 years in the military and served in Iraq. 

“It’s a lot different than firing a weapon at a target on a target range than it is to point it at another person and fire it,” he added. 

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jnolin@cnhi.com.