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DEL.ICIO.USThe fight was between Senate Republicans and the NRA, but the year was 1999
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The fight over the pistols-in-company-parking-lots bill continued to churn Thursday, as Senate Republicans tried to find a path between gun advocates and business interests. No progress was reported.
With his GOP caucus split, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle put S.B. 43 on hold on Tuesday, Crossover Day, sparking outrage from the National Rifle Association, which is backing the bill.
This isn’t the first time Republicans have stuck a thumb in the eye of the NRA. In fact, the last time, the GOP actually got something out of it.
Shortly after his election in 1998, Gov. Roy Barnes, who’d been endorsed by the NRA that year, was persuaded by the group to support legislation that would prevent cities from suing gun makers for crimes committed with their products.
Such a measure had timely resonance. Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell was about to file just such a lawsuit. H.B. 189, filed by state Rep. Curtis Jenkins (D-Forsyth), breezed through the Democrat-controlled House, and through the Senate committee system, also under the sway of Democrats.
Victory was assured, until two senators — Minority Leader Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) and a newly minted member of the GOP, Sonny Perdue of Bonaire — stepped in.
Republicans were ticked that the NRA had endorsed not just Barnes, but a slew of other Democrats the year before. On a Friday, Johnson joined forces with black Democrats, who disagreed with the aim of the gun bill, first to table the measure — and then to adjourn the Senate to keep it out of reach through the weekend.
“We decided we had to send a message to the NRA that they had a problem in Georgia,” said state Sen. Robert Lamutt (R-Marietta), according to a Wall Street Journal account of the incident. “They had to decide whether they wanted to be an arm of the Democratic Part or whether they wanted to go with the philosophical supporters of the Second Amendment.”
The NRA went ballistic, just as they have in past weeks. The group sent a barrage of phone calls into Republican senate districts, accusing GOP lawmakers of an unholy alliance with the unpopular mayor of Atlanta.
When the Senate reconvened, arm-twisting by Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor — in his rookie year, as this is Cagle’s first season — brought the bill off the table, and the measure passed. Republicans joined in voting for the bill, but had made their point.
Three years later, while planning his quixotic campaign to unseat an incumbent Democratic governor, Perdue — with his wife Mary and aide Dan McLagan — flew up to Washington to talk to Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the NRA.
U.S. Rep. Bob Barr joined the conversation.
That fall, the gun group again endorsed Barnes, in keeping with its policy of sticking with incumbents. But Perdue — and the GOP stand in 1999 — had blunted the endorsement. The NRA did little to aid the Barnes during the next critical weeks.
Perdue felt comfortable enough to challenge Barnes to a skeet shoot for the NRA endorsement. “Roy Barnes doesn’t know the difference between a shotgun and a bass boat,” said McLagan, by then the candidate’s spokesman.
The question now becomes whether Cagle, in 2007, is making a similar impression.
Comments
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By BBB
March 30, 2007 10:30 AM | Link to this
curtis jenkins was a democrat
By jane
March 30, 2007 10:35 AM | Link to this
Bob Barr lobbying for medical Marijunia? Is this an FDR type play for President?
By Ed
March 30, 2007 2:51 PM | Link to this
It’s too bad one of the victims of the string of robberies in Buckhead where the two thugs were robbing pregnant women didn’t have a LEGAL and PERMITTED pistol. We’d have two thugs on a steel table wearing toe tags, instead my tax dollars now having to house and feed the thugs. I am all for this law, I am a lifetime member of the NRA, I support having legal permitted hand guns at all times, why should crooks and thugs have them and not law abiding citizens? Guns don’t scare me, but liberals scare the absolute hell out of me.
By Tony
March 30, 2007 3:54 PM | Link to this
So Ed, you assume that even if the victims somehow were carrying guns they would have not only lived but been able to deter this theft AND somehow managed to kill them? Boy, talk about a stretch. That’s about the most emotional and liberal assumption on a topic I’ve ever heard.
Let me tell you a piece of psychology. When thretened with a gun and seeing a chance of death and actually fired upon, those on the other end typically fire back. So in your dream scenario here, we’d have many people dead rather than two.
Your support of people having guns means the people would carry them and choose to own them. It already is legal to carry permitted weapons. And these victims chose not to carry them. What makes you think another one of your laws would somehow solve the problem? Again, more laws on the books don’t solve problems. Your notion is liberalism. Liberals think requiring people to do certain things will make a better world. They think more laws will make a better society. So take your utopian vision elsewhere. It won’t work.
By meaculpa
March 30, 2007 6:18 PM | Link to this
What the NRA is asking for here in Georgia is a law that allows guns in parking lots to be locked in the driver’s trunk?
So explain how a gun locked in a car’s trunk would have helped stop this crime.
By Tony
March 30, 2007 6:53 PM | Link to this
It wouldn’t. And that is the issue. It’s all about what they want without thinking of the Constitutional rights of others or what it actually solves if anything. It is a knee-jerk emotionally charged issue where logic is tossed out the door. If the supporters of this would actually read the bill, the Constitution, and hear their own arguments, they’d pick up their ball and go home.
By Al
April 1, 2007 10:16 PM | Link to this
Concealed-carry-permitted guns enable innocent law-abiding citizens to protect themselves and others wherever they are, on or off of company property. Usually citizens with legal concealed guns are the first responders to crime, as police usually are in a react mode, arriving after a crime has been committed and then investigating the crime and then trying to apprehend the criminals.
Unfortunately for the anti-gunners, logic is not one of their strengths.
Keep your powder dry.
Al
By Tony
April 2, 2007 8:36 AM | Link to this
Protect themselves? If they have to worry about protection at work, they need to find a new job. I question those who have to worry about security all the time at their work that they feel it necessary to bring firearms on the property.
I find it hard to believe that these people will be able to sneak out, go get firearms, sneak back in and then be a viable part of a rescue without added death and injury. Ask law enforcement. They as first repsonders like to try and control and contain the situation. Having a group of people thinking they are Rambo, John McClain, or some sort of other super hero just adds to the confusion of their job.
Leave it to the trained and paid professionals to handle a crisis. Leave it to the Constitution to say that your rights end when they impede on mine.
Al, if you actually paid attention to the issue, you’d see quite a few who believe in the second amendment on the property rights side of the issue. Of course kneejerk reaction and emotional irrational reaction IS one of your ‘strengths’.