ATLANTA – The chairman of a congressional committee is asking the CEO of a Georgia firearms manufacturer to testify at an upcoming hearing on the industry’s role in the spike in gun violence in America.
“I am deeply troubled that gun manufacturers continue to profit from the sale of weapons of war, including AR-15-style assault rifles that were used by a white supremacist to murder 10 people in Buffalo, New York, and in the massacre of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas,” U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, wrote July 6 in a letter to Marty Daniel, CEO of Bryan County-based Daniel Defense.
“Products sold by your company have been used for decades to carry out homicides and even mass murders, yet your company has continued to market assault weapons to civilians.”
Maloney’s letter also cited the July 4 mass shooting at an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Ill., that left seven people dead and wounded dozens more.
The House committee launched an investigation into firearms manufacturers in late May following the shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde. Media reports have indicated Daniel Defense made the AR-15 used in the Uvalde killings.
The panel’s first hearing last month included gruesome testimony from survivors of the recent mass shootings and law enforcement officials who investigated the crimes.
Shortly after the June hearing, Congress passed the first federal gun restrictions in decades, legislation requiring enhanced background checks for buyers under the age of 21, providing federal grants for states willing to enact “red flag” laws that better screen would-be gun purchasers, and increasing penalties for gun traffickers.
“This law is an important step, but it does not ban assault weapons or implement other safety solutions that the gun industry has lobbied aggressively to prevent,” Maloney wrote.
Maloney also sent letters inviting the CEOs of Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger & Company to testify at the next hearing, set for July 20.
It was unclear Friday whether Daniel would testify. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgia closed out fiscal 2022 last month with a bulging budget surplus fueled by a significant increase in tax revenue.
The state Department of Revenue collected $2.85 billion in taxes in June, up 14.2% over June of last year, Gov. Brian Kemp’s office reported Friday.
During the full fiscal year, which ended June 30, the state brought in $33.09 billion in tax receipts, an increase of 23% over fiscal 2021, as Georgia’s economy continued to rebound from the pandemic.
Individual income taxes last month rose 14% over June of last year, with payments up 6% and refunds down 32%.
Net sales tax collections in June increased 12% over the same month in 2021.
Corporate income taxes, typically more volatile than individual income or sales taxes, rose 47.2% last month over June 2021, with both payments and refunds up substantially.
Due to Kemp’s decision to suspend collections of the state sales tax on gasoline, gas tax revenues plummeted by 99.5% last month compared to June of last year.
The General Assembly suspended collection of the tax in March as pump prices began rising toward record highs. Kemp has extended the sales tax holiday twice since then, with the latest extension due to expire in mid-August.
A healthy surplus allowed Georgia lawmakers to adopt a $30.2 billion fiscal 2023 budget in April, just shy of the $30.3 billion fiscal 2022 mid-year spending plan, including pay raises for teachers and state employees as well as a $1.1 billion tax refund.
With tax collections still going strong, the outlook for the next state budget appears promising. However, inflation and the threat of a recession loom as reasons for concern.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
The Georgia Guidestones monument was destroyed Wednesday after being damaged by an explosion.
ATLANTA – A quirky monument erected near Elberton more than 40 years ago has been destroyed after it was damaged by an explosion.
A surveillance video released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) shows an unknown car leaving the site of the Georgia Guidestones shortly after the explosion, which occurred at 4 a.m. Wednesday.
Personnel from the Elbert County Sheriff’s Office responding to the scene found a large part of the monument had been destroyed. The remaining portions then were destroyed for safety reasons.
The Georgia Guidestones monument was erected in 1980 eight miles north of Elberton on Georgia 77. It was 19 feet tall and contained six granite slabs.
Often referred to as an “American Stonehenge,” the Guidestones contained 10 guidelines in eight languages on how people should live in harmony with nature, value truth and balance personal rights with social duties.
The monument was commissioned in 1979 by a man using the pseudonym “Robert C. Christian” and dedicated the following year. He said he chose that name because of his Christian beliefs.
It became a tourist attraction in off-the-beaten-path Elbert County, drawing more than 20,000 visitors annually.
Despite the monument’s apparently Christian roots, a former gubernatorial candidate called the Guidestones “satanic” in a Twitter posting.
Republican Kandiss Taylor, who finished a distant third behind Gov. Brian Kemp and former U.S. Sen. David Perdue in the GOP primary in May, credited God for “striking down” the monument.
Anyone with information on the explosion is encouraged to contact the Elbert County Sheriff’s Office at (706) 283-2421 or the GBI Athens Office at (706) 552-2309.
Anonymous tips can also be submitted by calling 1-800-597-TIPS (8477), online at https://gbi.georgia.gov/submit-tips-online, or by downloading the See Something, Send Something mobile app.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Officials at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport Thursday announced a $40 million plan to upgrade Concourse D at the world’s busiest airport.
The project, being funded through the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure spending bill Congress passed last fall, will widen and modernize the terminal.
Improvements will include expanded waiting areas, larger restrooms, an expanded central concourse corridor and better access for passengers with disabilities.
“Concourse D, for more than four decades, has played an integral role in allowing [Hartsfield-Jackson] to retain its status as a vital cog in the aviation system,” said Balram Bheodari, the airport’s general manager.
“It is now time for an upgrade, and this grant will provide the funding necessary to begin the project that will shape [the airport] for the next four decades.”
“Hartsfield-Jackson is the busiest and most efficient airport in the world, and we need to invest in its infrastructure for continued growth and leadership of the commercial aviation industry,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens added.
“This grant will create good-paying jobs as we widen Concourse D to bring the 40-year-old structure up to the level of the airport’s six other concourses.”
The project is expected to create more than 500 construction jobs.
The federal infrastructure spending legislation included about $619 million for Georgia’s airports.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Taylor, who was recently named a council member, attended George Washington University on a softball scholarship and even played softball professionally.
Taylor had nurtured an Olympic softball dream since she watched the 1996 Atlanta Olympics “up close and personal” as a child growing up in Douglasville.
When she didn’t make the Olympic softball team, her parents gave her a bobsled. She emailed an Olympic bobsledding coach and began an improbable and wildly successful career as a world champion bobsledder from the Sun Belt.
Taylor and her husband, fellow bobsledder Nic Taylor, are now settled back in Atlanta after stints at Olympic training centers in Lake Placid, N.Y., and Colorado Springs, Colo.
Taylor’s son Nico was born in March 2020, about a week before the pandemic struck Georgia. She and her husband learned of Nico’s diagnosis with Down’s syndrome and hearing loss at his birth.
“It didn’t matter to us,” she said. “It was our son, and we were going to do whatever we could to make him the happiest kid possible.”
But the couple soon felt the stigma associated with Nico’s diagnosis. Taylor resisted condolences people offered.
The disconnect between how Taylor felt about her son and how the world saw Nico led her to open up their lives to NBCduring this year’s Olympics.
“Just showing him and showing the joy that we have on a daily basis was really important to us,” she said.
“The biggest thing I would tell anybody, when faced with a diagnosis, is that we live an extremely joyous life. A diagnosis is only part of who [Nico] is but doesn’t define.”
Becoming a council member with the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities was a natural extension of Taylor’s public role as an advocate for inclusion and acceptance for Nico over the past few years.
Taylor said one priority for her is making sure that children in other parts of the state can get the same care as children in Atlanta.
A strong advocate for inclusive education for children with disabilities, she said she plans for Nico to be educated in Georgia’s public schools, as she was.
Taylor pointed out there is a special education teacher shortage in Georgia. She lauded a recent teacher pay increase but said more is needed to attract people to become special education teachers.
“Without a doubt, I think the biggest myth we have to dispel within the education system … is that individuals with disabilities … might need more resources [or] might need a little more help, but they’re not taking away from anything.”
“There’s a way for all of us to get what we need, and it’s not robbing Peter to save Paul or anything like that.”
Taylor – whose career has been characterized by the need for speed – said that raising Nico has forced her to slow down sometimes.
“When you go through what we’ve been through, whether it’s hospitalizations, whether it’s therapies … you value just these simple moments of sitting around as a family a lot more,” she said.
Taylor said her time as a world champion bobsledder has taught her to adapt to changing and challenging circumstances.
“Not having a sled, that’s a pretty good challenge to figure out a workaround,” Taylor said of a time her sled was delayed before key qualifying races. “But that’s every day of parenting, regardless of whether or not your child has a disability.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
