Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech: These are names we now associate with a horrifiying image — students fleeing schools as their peers are gunned down by disgruntled loners or, more frighteningly, by their own classmates.
Price Middle School and Ronald E. McNair Academy are institutions much closer to home where we recently experienced near misses. A January 2013 shooting at Price wounded a 14-year-old boy. Last August, a gunman barricaded himself in McNair offices and fired at police; miraculously, no one was hurt in that ordeal.
House Bill 875 increases the possibility that Georgia students may once again be subjected to such dangers. The bill, if it becomes law, increases the chances of violence by expanding the list of public places where a concealed firearm can be carried.
The right to bear arms, as stated in the U.S. Constitution, is part of our Bill of Rights. The majority of gun owners in Georgia are law-abiding citizens who own firearms for sport or protection. My opposition to HB 875 is not about that right, but about the accompanying responsibility, in particular our responsibility as lawmakers to keep all citizens safe.
The bill would allow concealed weapons to be carried in bars, houses of worship and even areas of the airport preceding TSA-secured screening stations. HB 875 also would expand the list of people allowed to carry a firearm on a school campus, and makes carrying a firearm on elementary school property a misdemeanor.
Also troubling is a provision permitting possession of a gun at government buildings with unrestricted entrances without security screening. It will increase costs for local government to hire more security, using your taxpayer dollars.
All of these measures could result in the proliferation of concealed firearms in public spaces, something more akin to the Wild West than Atlanta 2014. It is a huge step backward.
As a commission chairman in the state’s largest county and one with a top-notch, accredited police force, I want to give our men and women in blue the tools they need to keep our streets safe. Often, those tools are laws that help them do their jobs.
One provision of this bill prevents police from confirming that a person carrying a weapon is properly licensed. This dismisses the officer’s experience and instinct to identify a possible threat and potentially puts that officer at risk. I can no more put the general public in danger than I can the people who are sworn to protect them. HB 875 endangers both.
While the House has spoken, so has Fulton County’s delegation. By a vote of 14-11, our county’s lawmakers voted against HB 875. Clearly the majority of Fulton County’s House members see this bill much as I do: an initiative that will do more to endanger the public than to ensure its safety. The lawlessness and disregard that some offenders have shown for their neighbors and classmates should not be further reinforced by state lawmakers whose job it is to make lives safer.
John Eaves is chairman of the Fulton County Commission.
