ATLANTA – Georgia lawmakers should use Wednesday’s school shooting in Barrow County as a catalyst to make it harder for children to gain access to firearms, the chairman of a state Senate study committee said Thursday.
“We have an opportunity in Georgia,” said Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, chairman of the Senate Safe Firearm Storage Study Committee. “Now is the time for us to take advantage of this opportunity and seize the moment.”
Two teachers and two students at Apalachee High School were shot to death Wednesday and nine others were injured. Authorities identified the victims as assistant football coach Richard Aspinwall, math teacher Christina Irimie, and students Christian Angulo and Mason Schermerhorn.
A 14-year-old student, Colt Gray, was arrested and charged with murder. He is accused of using an AR-15 rifle with a collapsible stock.
The latest in an epidemic of school shootings that have shaken the nation in recent years has drawn national attention to Georgia’s lax gun laws.
In a state that allows adult gun owners to carry their weapons openly without a permit and imposes no safe storage requirements to keep guns out of the hands of minors, more than 300 children have been treated in a Georgia emergency room for a firearm wound so far this year, according to the state chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Georgia House Democrats introduced several bills aimed at safe storage last year, including a proposed tax credit for expenses incurred buying firearm storage devices such as trigger locks and safes. But none made any headway in the Republican-controlled House.
This year, a Republican-backed tax credit measure did clear the House but was tabled in the Senate.
On the Senate side, a resolution passed this year created a study committee to determine if changes to state laws relating to firearms storage and access to guns by children are needed. Thursday’s meeting was the second of four the panel plans to hold later this year.
Thursday’s discussion renewed a longstanding debate over whether stricter gun laws or improving mental health services are the better approach to reducing gun violence.
Heather Hallett, who organized the group Georgia Majority for Gun Safety, said a child access prevention law requiring gun owners to keep their weapons locked and stored in a secure location would significantly reduce not only homicides but suicides and accidental shootings.
“We’re in a state of gun owners,” Hallett said. “[But] there are common-sense solutions and regulations that can save lives while protecting our Second Amendment rights.”
Sen. Frank Ginn, R-Danielsville, a member of the study committee, said reducing gun violence committed by young people is going to require identifying and counseling those with mental health issues who might perpetrate such acts.
“Firearms are not the enemy,” said Ginn, who represents the Senate district where Wednesday’s school shooting occurred. “The enemy is the mentally deranged.”
Jordan Murphy, executive director of Girassol Wellness, which works with children who survived firearm injuries and families who have lost young people to gun violence, said both approaches are necessary. Her group is recommending both a safe storage law for firearms and expanding resources for mental health counseling.
“We have to hold people accountable,” Murphy said. “If you want to have a gun, be responsible about it.”