The gun lobby has a new talking point in its same old reckless campaign: Allowing students to carry loaded firearms around college campuses will prevent sexual assault. That couldn’t be more wrong.

Lifting campus gun bans won’t prevent sexual or dating violence on campus—in fact, it will make it worse. But legislators in Georgia have introduced a bill that will do just that. Georgia House Bill 859 would allow students to carry concealed weapons anywhere on campus, which will endanger students and exacerbate sexual and dating violence with likely fatal consequences.

Can you take 3 minutes right now to email Georgia legislators and tell them to vote NO on this dangerous bill?

Sexual and dating violence is pervasive on college campuses: one in five women will be sexually assaulted while in college, and 32 percent of female students report having been abused by a dating partner. Guns are the most common weapons used in the murders of intimate partners,and in Georgia, they are by far the leading cause of death in domestic violence fatalities. Lifting campus gun bans will endanger students—particularly those in abusive relationships—and could cost Georgia students their lives.

Some proponents of these dangerous bills have suggested that allowing students to carry guns will protect them from becoming victims of sexual assault. This is far from the truth. The vast majority of campus rapes are perpetrated by the victim’s partner, friend, or close acquaintance. These are precisely the people around whom victims would never think to carry a gun, let alone use one. And the presence of a gun in a case of domestic violence makes it five times more likely that the victim will be murdered, regardless of who owns the gun. Though some individual victims might believe that they are safer while carrying a gun, the research is clear: Arming potential victims is not an effective strategy for preventing sexual or dating violence, and will actually increase the likelihood that victims or other bystanders will be wounded or killed.

Guns on campus will do little to protect potential rape victims or students in abusive relationships, while providing perpetrators the most deadly tool to menace victims—and raising the likelihood that rape will escalate to murder. As University of North Carolina student Landen Gambill, who was raped by a violent ex-boyfriend, wrote, “If my rapist had a gun at school, I have no doubt I’d be dead.”

We need your help to defeat this bill and protect Georgia students. Send Georgia legislators a brief letter NOW and tell them to vote against H.B. 859.

This effort is sponsored by Know Your IX and the Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus.