Sen. Emanuel Jones talks with reporters in the Capitol after releasing recommendations for gun safety bills. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
The chairman of a state Senate panel tasked with studying secure firearm storage has released six recommendations for next year’s legislative session intended to reduce firearm injuries and deaths among Georgia children.
Speaking to reporters in the Capitol after presenting the recommendations, Sen. Emanuel Jones, the committee chair, said 205 Georgia children were killed by a firearm last year.
“We can do a much better job in Georgia. We have to do a much better job,” the Decatur Democrat said. “This is one statistic we should not beat the nation in.”
The recommendations range from vague goals of promoting awareness of mental health to more concrete tasks like creating a government office to research causes of gun violence and a ten-day waiting period for people without weapons carry licenses to buy assault rifles.
The committee’s recommendations from a draft report:
- A statewide alert protocol which would include a requirement that when a student, having been flagged for potentially dangerous behavior, seeks to transfer schools, the new school is notified of the issues before the student is enrolled in the new school.
- Address mental health issues and promote awareness
- Child Access Prevention Laws, including civil and criminal Penalties
- Promotion of safe storage devices and promoting homeowners’ insurance policy benefits with regard to safe storage devices, as well as tax incentives for safe storage purchases.
- Create a director position that can implement a “Statewide Research & Development Office” that would have responsibility to educate, communicate and research root causes of gun violence.
- Require a ten-day waiting period for the purchase of assault rifles unless the person has a weapons carry license.
Georgia Democrats have long sought to create new gun safety regulations, but they have been thwarted by Republicans who call such regulations an infringement of their Second Amendment rights.
Last year, the House and Senate passed separate bipartisan plans that aimed to encourage Georgian gun owners to lock up their weapons through tax incentives, but neither plan ultimately became law. Previous attempts led by Democrats to punish parents for negligently allowing children to access guns have failed to gain traction in recent years, as have so-called red flag laws, which would allow people deemed to be at risk of harming themselves or others to be temporarily disarmed.
But Jones expressed optimism that all of the committee’s recommendations would move forward in next year’s session, set to begin Jan. 13.
“My goal is always to go long, to go big,” he said. “So I believe that we can get all of these things passed.”
Separately, in the House, Decatur Democratic Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver, recently announced plans to file a bill that would require liability insurance for assault weapons.
Gun regulation optimists cite a few reasons for their rosy view. For one, the committee would not have been able to form without the approval of Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Jackson Republican and vocal Second Amendment backer.
Some have also expressed hope that September’s shooting at Appalachee High School in Winder may push lawmakers to take action. Four people died in that shooting, and a 14-year-old student and his father were arrested and indicted on murder charges.
Heather Hallett, the founder and director of Georgia Majority for Gun Safety said she has been advocating for gun safety for the better part of a decade and she is also optimistic.
“I’m hopeful that both sides of the aisle can come together to find a way to promote this culture of safe gun ownership,” she said. “I really, honestly, have some hope and a little bit of faith that there’s gonna be something in the middle that we can do in Georgia to hopefully make an impact on the number of child, accidental deaths, suicides, gun violence. It’s the leading cause of death in Georgia and across the country, and we need to take action, and I think that that is something that cuts across the partisan divide.”
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