Campaign check: Loeffler says Warnock is ‘radically anti-gun’

Credit: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Credit: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Ahead of the January runoff election, the Warnock campaign has focused instead on criminal justice reform. His website says that if elected, he would work to reduce “senseless gun violence,” but offers few details about how that would be accomplished.

His views do not appear to go further than most Democrats. Loeffler hasn’t offered the support to back up her claim that he’s the “most radically anti-gun in America.”

For both candidates, the issue is personal.

“I’ve eulogized victims of gun violence, and I never want to do it again,” Warnock said in an Oct. 29 tweet. “We need to end the epidemic of gun violence that has plagued our country.”

Warnock is pastor of at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the former pulpit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The Civil Rights leader lost his life to gun violence when he was assassinated in Memphis in 1968.

In June, Warnock delivered the eulogy for Rayshard Brooks, the Black father of four who was fatally shot by an Atlanta police officer in a Wendy’s parking lot. “This country has become too accustomed and comfortable with Black people dying,” he said.

Much of the Loeffler campaign’s criticism of Warnock’s stance on guns comes from 2014, when Warnock campaigned against multiple Georgia bills that would allow weapons to be carried in churches, bars, government buildings and on college campuses.

Many other religious leaders also denounced the legislation, including then Catholic Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory and Rabbi Peter Berg of The Temple synagogue in Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

“We reject the notion that more guns held by more people will magically make our communities safer,” Warnock said at the time. That same year, his church held a gun buy-back event to get weapons off the streets, the AJC reported.

In a video on her website, Loeffler says she learned how to shoot and hunt at a young age. “I took military marksmanship and I was able to learn to assemble, disassemble, load and shoot M16s.”

Loeffler also said there should be no restrictions on the Second Amendment. It’s possible, then, she sees any kind of legislative measures to curb some types of gun use as “taking away our guns.”

“We’ve seen this slippery slope that’s been happening over the years legislatively,” “she said. We’ve seen the left come at it from a number of angles and try to impact Americans rights under the Second Amendment, which are unfettered and we need to keep it that way.”

Warnock has not revealed any policy positions related to altering gun laws or the Second Amendment.

Pro-gun groups, including Gun Owners of America and the National Rifle Association, are backing Loeffler. The NRA, which gives her an “A” rating, says on its website the she supports pro-gun judges, opposes a gun registry, supports right-to-carry concealed firearms and opposes a semi-auto ban of firearms “used for hunting, recreational shooting and self-defense.”

As Loeffler has burnished her pro-gun credentials, gun rights organizations have greatly outspent gun control groups with support during this election cycle in Georgia, according to CNBC.com.

Two years, ago, the AJC reported that a broad majority of likely Georgia voters favored stricter gun control measures. That included a growing number of Republicans who break ranks with their party leaders by calling for more limits on firearm sales, according to a pair of polls conducted for The AJC and Channel 2 Action News.

Georgia has ranked as one of the leading states in firearms deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control. In 2018, nearly 1,700 people died from gun violence.

Feedback: Send your campaign questions to senatewatch@ajc.com