Lawmaker after lawmaker hustled into a committee room Wednesday afternoon, scrambling to prepare for a hastily called meeting of a House Public Safety subcommittee.
On the agenda? Eight gun bills.
The meeting was a surprise to most. Even sponsors of the bills said they were given an hour or less to prepare. In the end, subcommittee Chairman Heath Clark, R-Warner Robins, said no votes would be taken.
Still, the subcommittee heard sometimes emotional testimony on a handful of the bills before ending testimony after an hour to make way for another committee’s scheduled start.
Rep. Keisha Waites, D-Atlanta, presented her House Bill 334, which would bar anyone who is subject to a temporary restraining order from buying a gun. Waites introduced April Ross, whose story was the impetus for the bill.
Ross was a Fulton County prosecutor when her estranged husband shot her three times in 2014 shortly after Ross filed for divorce.
Ross was hit three times and is now paralyzed from the chest down. Her husband committed suicide.
Ross said her husband threatened her after they separated and that while she didn’t seek a restraining order, she might have considered it if Waites’ bill was already the law.
“It was about two or three weeks before I filed for divorce he let me know I was basically going to be a ghost and that there was only one way out of marriage and it was in a grave,” Ross said.
“I think it would have been a good deterrent and possibly could have changed the outcome of that situation,” she said.
The subcommittee was largely receptive, but Rep. Micah Gravley, R-Douglasville, said he was worried that the subject of a restraining order would be stripped of his or her rights, particularly if the other party falsely claims abuse.
“We (could) have an individual who has done nothing other than want to save a relationship now unable to purchase a firearm,” he said.
But Waites said the two concerns are not equal.
“I’m more interested in protecting women, mothers and children than that dynamic,” she said. “This cause trumps that dynamic.”
The panel also heard testimony on Rep. Matt Gutler's HB 156, which would make it Georgia's weapons permits strictly voluntary and allow anyone to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
Eleven other states allow what’s called “constitutional carry,” Gurtler, R-Tiger, said.
“I see the Georgia weapons license as a tax in a way,” he said.
The other bill heard Wednesday was Canton Republican Rep. Mandi Ballinger's HB 280, which allows weapons permit holders to carry guns onto public college and university campuses,
Clark, the subcommittee chairman, said another hearing will be held soon were additional testimony will be taken.
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