Cecilia Wallace clutched a gold, glitter-covered bald eagle and held back tears.
It had been a hard week, both personally and with the news of the Sept. 4 shooting at Apalachee High School.
On Tuesday night, Wallace just wanted to be around “like-minded people” and “hear how our future president does in the debate.”
She was standing in the hallway at Adventure Outdoors, a Smyrna business billed as “The World’s Largest Gun Store,” which she and her husband, Jay, own. Their son, Eric, operates it. The store has an event space on the upstairs level where supporters of former President Donald Trump held a party to watch the first debate unfold between him and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Democratic leaders and gun-violence prevention advocacy groups decried the decision to host the watch party at a shooting range as callous and insensitive after the school shooting in Barrow County.
Authorities say a 14-year-old freshman shot and killed two teachers and two students with a semiautomatic gun his father gave him “with knowledge that he was a threat to himself and others,” according to warrants. Nine others were wounded in the deadly episode.
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign said the Democrats’ “narrative is intentionally misleading” as the venue was selected in June and has provided space for many Republican leaders over the years.
For Cecilia Wallace, news of the shooting was rattling.
“Clearly the boy had a dysfunctional, troubled family life,” she said, referring to the accused shooter. That’s why Georgia needs more mental health support, Wallace, a retired nurse, said three times for emphasis.
“A gun doesn’t just jump up and start shooting,” she said. “We need to get to the root causes.”
Wallace said she would be open to restrictions in some circumstances for people judged to be an extreme mental health risk. However, “if you’re on a light dose of an antidepressant,” for example, she doesn’t believe that should be a disqualifying factor to own a firearm.
Jay Wallace called the outrage by Democrats over hosting the watch party at his store “opportunistic.”
“I think people that have agendas take advantage of them,” he said. “Would they criticize a school if they had an event there?”
U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, who chairs the state Democratic Party, said protecting children and protecting the Second Amendment are not mutually exclusive choices.
“Donald Trump and JD Vance telling America we have to accept the gun violence plaguing our schools and communities as a ‘fact of life’ is bad enough, but the Trump campaign and Georgia Republicans holding a debate watch party at a giant gun superstore less than a week after two students and two teachers were murdered at Apalachee High School is much darker, even for them,” she said.
Wallace opened Adventure Outdoors in 1976. He began his career by buying excess items from police departments and storage companies and reselling them. Among the items was one box of shotgun shells. Someone had tipped off authorities that he was selling ammunition without a federal license and came knocking on his door.
“So I said, ‘Well, while you’re here, what do you have to do to get a license to sell firearms and ammunition?’” Wallace said. “And that’s how I got into the business.”
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
He said state lawmakers should focus on why someone gets to a place in their mind where they decide to commit a violent act.
“I think that we lost our way in how we handle mental health, and we need to get back to focusing on it and doing things to make a difference” he said.
In 2022, the federal 988 system for emergency mental health crisis calls began in the state. That same year, Georgia passed a parity bill that requires insurance companies to provide coverage for mental health care and substance-use disorders at levels comparable to physical health care, reaffirming federal requirements. It was largely seen as the first step to ensure parity is being met.
John King, Georgia’s insurance and safety fire commissioner, oversees parity enforcement and was also at the Trump campaign’s event Tuesday. He said his office is in the process of requesting data from insurance companies to determine whether they are meeting federal standards. Those that don’t comply will be fined.
“It’s going to be a long, hard road,” he said.
Twenty-one states have passed “red flag laws” that allow authorities to quickly remove firearms from people who pose a serious risk of harming themselves or others, but Georgia is not one of them. Wallace said he could support such a law in Georgia “if it wasn’t for people able to take advantage of it and use it in an incorrect way.”
“If there was a perfect system, I could be in favor of it,” he said.
But he questioned the motivations of these proposals.
“The agenda is to disarm this country,” he said. “It’s a power thing, and they don’t understand the importance of individual freedom.”
During the ABC debate Tuesday, Harris said she has no plans to take anyone’s firearms away from them.
“This business about taking everyone’s guns away — (Democratic vice presidential nominee) Tim Walz and I are both gun owners. We’re not taking anybody’s guns away,” she said.
Eric Wallace said the shooting at Apalachee was a “tragedy” and the suspect is “evil.”
Criticism of the watch party, however, felt convenient, he said.
“It’s not surprising that someone who is not a supporter of the Second Amendment ... would take advantage of a tragedy,” he said. “Anti-gun politicians look for any reason to shed bad light on legal gun owners. This is probably one of the safest places in the city.”
He supports a 2022 Georgia law that allows legal gun owners to carry a concealed handgun everywhere license holders currently are allowed and said red flag laws would be a “tough conversation to have on how that would be enacted.”
Wallace said he’s not sure what kind of middle ground lawmakers could reach to prevent additional mass shootings.
“I think when you’re dealing with evil, you can’t come up with laws and legislation necessarily to stop evil,” he said.
He does believe gun owners should be responsible and limit access to people who should not have them.
A Republican-backed state House bill this year that would have provided a tax credit to people who purchase and safely store their firearms failed to move from the Senate.
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