It’s something to see when the most powerful leaders in the state of Georgia seem resigned to being completely powerless over a single issue. But that’s what has happened in the aftermath of this week’s horrific school shooting in Barrow County, and the question of the gun the 14-year-old shooter had in his hands when he did it.
The boy, armed with an AR-15 style rifle, shot and killed two other 14-year-old students and two teachers. Nine others were injured and an entire community was changed forever. In response, the most every Republican leader in this state has been able to offer are thoughts and prayers for the grieving and gone.
No plans to stop another boy from getting another gun. No emergency hearings to consider how to keep AR-15s out of schools. No promises to keep another school shooting from happening again. Just an admonishment from Gov. Brian Kemp at a Wednesday night news conference that “today is not the day” when he was asked by a reporter how we can keep kids safe from school shooters in the future.
When it is a good day to talk about it, we’ll have to address the fact that the same Republican leaders offering thoughts and prayers to the victims Wednesday have also made loosening gun restrictions in Georgia a top priority.
After a series of changes to gun laws since 2014, there is now no requirement to have a license to carry a concealed weapon in Georgia and no prohibition against carrying guns in areas they were prohibited a decade ago, including colleges, bars and churches. It is also legal for a minor to carry a long gun, as the shooter did, and there is no requirement to keep a gun locked away, whether it’s in a car, a home or a child’s backpack.
While gun restrictions were being loosened in Georgia, state leaders also made Georgia a top gun-producing state. When Remington Firearms, the nation’s oldest gunmaker, announced it would move its global headquarters to Georgia in 2021, CEO Ken D’Arcy pointed to Georgia’s pro-gun atmosphere for his decision, saying the state “not only welcomes business but enthusiastically supports and welcomes companies in the firearms industry.”
All of that has happened against a backdrop of GOP leaders who have increasingly made firearms a symbol of their own political campaigns and livelihoods. First there was Kemp’s breakthrough 2018 campaign ad, which featured him holding a gun in his lap while he talked to one of his daughter’s boyfriends.
In 2020, U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde began putting an image of an AR-15 on all of his campaign signs. U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, whose district includes Apalachee High School, ran a campaign ad in 2022 that featured him using a rifle to shoot up a voting machine. And U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene routinely gives away AR-15s as campaign contest prizes. In 2020, she held a contest to give away her own AR.
So it’s no surprise that when every parent’s worst nightmare unfolds, the gun used to kill four people and traumatize an entire school is the last thing leaders in this state want to talk about.
To address school shootings to this point, Kemp and the Georgia Legislature have spent millions to harden schools. Thankfully, Apalachee High School had two school resource officers who stopped the student from creating more carnage. Mental health spending was increased, too.
But it wasn’t enough. And it never will be until Republican leaders do everything possible — from security upgrades to mental health funding to, yes, doing something to keep guns out of a 14-year-old boy’s hands.
And it’s not just in Barrow County. Firearms are now the leading cause of death for children in Georgia. So far this year, more than 300 children in the state have been treated for gunshot wounds — more than one per day. Pediatricians will tell you they’re angry and exhausted by the status quo. And so is every parent I talk to.
There is no shortage of ideas and options to consider. Laws for gun locks, gun safes and red flag laws were all proposed in the General Assembly last year, and some even had bipartisan support before they died at the end of the session.
At a state Senate hearing Thursday meant to discuss safe gun storage, DeKalb County Chief of Police Mirtha Ramos told lawmakers basic personal responsibility has to play a greater role, too.
“Safe gun ownership is where I’m going,” she said. “We’re talking about youth getting guns, but what about the people who are putting those guns into their hands? Where is the accountability for those people?”
Among the people who also must be held accountable are the Republican leaders in our state who control every lever of power, and are not, in fact, powerless to stop gun violence. They can start by changing the culture of guns in Georgia that they have helped to create by using them as political props, prizes or punchlines.
Then they can also take action to stop children from being shot in the future. Along with their thoughts and prayers, they can tell parents to lock their guns away from their children if they’re not with them. And lock their guns in their cars if they don’t keep them at home.
And they can find policy solutions to get our kids out of this horrific new normal, where being in school doesn’t feel safe, because it isn’t.
School shootings do not have to be a “fact of life,” no matter what JD Vance said Thursday. But our leaders need to do something on guns to make the shootings stop — or be held accountable in the future if they don’t.
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