Mother Jones
Georgia stamp: William Howell/Thinkstock; Bullet holes: Enterline Design Services LLC/Thinkstock
Soon
gun owners in the state of Georgia may be allowed to pack heat almost
anywhere—including K-12 schools, bars, churches, government buildings,
and airports. The "Safe Carry Protection Act" (HB 875) would also expand
Georgia's Stand Your Ground statute, the controversial law
made famous by the Trayvon Martin killing, which allows armed citizens to defend themselves with deadly force if they believe they are faced with serious physical harm.
The bill could pass as soon as next week, before the current
legislative session ends March 20. It is the latest effort in the battle
over gun laws that continues to rage
in statehouses around the country.
It is perhaps also the most extreme yet. "Of all the bills pending
right now in state legislatures, this is the most sweeping and most
dangerous," Laura Cutiletta, a staff attorney with the
Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence,
told PolitiFact.
Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun reform advocacy group
founded by former congresswoman Gabby Giffords after she was shot in the
head,
has deemed it the "guns everywhere" bill. For its part, the National Rifle Association
recently called HB 875 "the most comprehensive pro-gun reform legislation introduced in recent state history."
In addition to overturning current state laws and dramatically rolling back concealed-carry restrictions, HB 875
would loosen other gun regulations in the state.
The law would:
- Remove the fingerprinting requirement for gun license renewals
- Prohibit the state from keeping a gun license database
- Tighten the state's preemption statute, which restricts local governments from passing gun laws that conflict with state laws
- Repeal the state licensing requirement for firearms dealers (requiring only a federal firearms license)
- Expand gun owner rights in a declared state of emergency by
prohibiting government authorities from seizing, registering, or
otherwise limiting the carrying of guns in any way permitted by
law before the emergency was declared
- Limit the governor's emergency powers by repealing the ability to
regulate the sale of firearms during a declared state of emergency
- Lower the age to obtain a concealed-carry license from 21 to 18 for
active-duty military and honorably discharged veterans who've completed
basic training
- Prohibit detaining someone for the sole purpose of checking whether they have a gun license
The sweeping bill would also expand the state's Stand your Ground law
into an "absolute" defense for the use of deadly force in
self-protection. "Defense of self or others," the bills reads "shall be
an absolute defense to any violation under this part." In its current
wording, the bill would even allow individuals who possess a gun
illegally—convicted felons, for example—to still claim a Stand Your
Ground defense.
The
Stand Your Ground provision has drawn some notable opposition: Lucia
McBath, a resident of Marietta, Georgia, and the mother of Jordan Davis,
the 17-year-old victim in another
high-profile Stand Your Ground case, spoke out against the bill at a Senate hearing
Wednesday. She also published
an op-ed in the
Savannah Morning News to express her opposition to the gun bill.
"I believe Florida's Stand Your Ground law, and the aggressive
culture it fosters, is the reason my son is not here today," she wrote,
regarding her son's death in Jacksonville in 2012. "Our legislature is
looking to expand this dangerous law even further. Legislation here in
Georgia, HB 875, would extend our state's Stand Your Ground law to
protect felons who kill using illegal guns…The last thing our families
need is for criminals to be shielded by this law."
The legislation passed the House
overwhelmingly
in February and moved to the state Senate, where it went into
committee. But in a strategic move on Tuesday, House Republicans revised
the bill and then
tacked it onto
a separate piece of legislation, HB 60, which would allow some judges
to carry guns. The move accomplished two things: First, it allowed the
bill to bypass committee and go to the Senate floor for an immediate
vote because HB 60 had already been approved by both the House and
Senate. Second, the revision did away with a provision that would have
decriminalized carrying guns on college campuses—the bill's supporters
knew that the Senate had
struck down a similar legislative effort at the end of last year's session due to a campus carry statute.
"If the Senators were hiding behind campus carry, they can't hide
behind campus carry now," Rep. Alan Powell, one of the bill's sponsors,
told Atlanta's WSB radio. Meanwhile, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has a robust record of
supporting pro-gun policies, and
an "A" rating from the NRA.
The Georgia bill is one of several recent efforts to push for laxer
concealed-carry laws. A bill now moving through Indiana's Legislature
would allow guns to be kept locked inside cars on school property, while a South Carolina bill that passed last month
allows concealed carry in bars and restaurants.
*
For more, see our special reports: Newtown: One Year After and America Under the Gun: The Rise of Mass Shootings.
Correction: An earlier version of this article said that the South Carolina concealed carry bill did not pass.
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