(The Center Square) — If Georgia lawmakers move to consider gun legislation in the wake of a shooting at Barrow County’s Apalachee High School, unsurprisingly, there is a clear partisan divide on what they might consider.
The Republican-controlled Legislature has recently focused on passing measures that align with a national trend, including open carry and permit-less carry. As is the case in many states, the pro-gun side and the anti-gun movements both have their playbooks they follow, an expert previously told The Center Square.
“There is a lot of research demonstrating that certain gun safety laws really make a difference from data that’s been gathered from other states,” state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta, told The Center Square. “And those include safe storage laws, universal background checks and extreme risk protection order laws. Georgia has none of the above.
“I would hope that we would seriously look at all of those, all of which have been pending in the legislature for many years now, most of which have not even received a hearing,” Parent added.
Conversely, Republicans appear poised to make mental health a focus of their push.
“We could put metal detectors up; we can put more resource officers. … We can arm more faculty and staff — we’ve allowed that in the law,” state Sen. Frank Ginn, R-Danielsville, said during a safe storage study committee hearing earlier this month. “We can do those … things, but those are all defense” approaches.
“When you start looking at … getting to the root cause of somebody’s mental illness that’s causing this — and that’s where I think we need to focus with the best opportunity to address it before it happens,” Ginn added. “Because, as you know, you can defend against a lot of things, but if somebody’s bound and determined, … they can sit outside of a schoolyard and with the rifle. We saw it happen to President Trump.”
Another change lawmakers might consider is regulations surrounding gun ownership and mental health.
“One of the things that I learned in my research is that Georgia, on our books, we have some archaic laws [related] to mental health and gun ownership,” said Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, said during the same committee hearing. “And one of those laws simply [mandates Georgians to] be institutionalized before you can be denied ownership of a weapon. And we all know in this great state, we don’t institutionalize people anymore.”
In the past, conversations may have been slow to develop in the period immediately following a tragedy, but that is starting to change.
“A lot of this issue of delaying the conversation has come from a previous mindset of, ‘hey, it’s too soon,'” Frank Figliuzzi, a national security analyst for NBC News, told The Center Square.” You used to hear this frequently. ‘Oh, here comes those people. They’re going to get on their bandwagon … and start talking political stuff right during the grieving period.’
“I’m actually pleased to see that we’ve thrown that out the window because I can tell you, I started immediately talking about what is sometimes perceived as political but should not be, which is gun safety and national security,” Figliuzzi added. “I don’t see this as a political issue. Of course, we have managed, as a society, sadly, to politicize everything.”
