Ladies and gentlemen, your first Gold Dome gun bills of 2015 have arrived
Unless something changes, the bills might not make it far in 2015
The legislative session is never complete without an attempt or four to loosen up the state’s gun control laws. But fear not, Georgia residents! State lawmakers have finally introduced a couple of bills appealing to gun toters.
State Rep. Heath Clark, R-Warner Robins, has dropped two measures that would strengthen Second Amendment rights. One bill, officially named the “Georgia Constitutional Carry Act of 2015,” would no longer require gun owners who are 21 years or older to obtain a permit for open or concealed carry across the state. There would be a few restrictions: No guns for felons or residents who have spent time in a mental hospital or rehab facility sometime during the past five years.
“We shouldn’t have to ask permission from the government to exercise our Second Amendment rights in this state,” Georgia Gun Owners Executive Director Patrick Parsons today said to his group’s supporters.
The second measure could mark the return of the campus carry debate to the Gold Dome. If passed, Clark’s bill would allow residents holding a firearm permit to bring their weapons on a “property or building owned by or leased to any public or private technical school, vocational school, college, university, or other institution of postsecondary education.” The bill notes that college campuses, by definition, wouldn’t include government buildings. So no guns would be allowed in the Gold Dome.
We’ve reached out to Clark for comment. The freshman state rep, who’s previously said that he promised action on the controversial issue to campaign supporters, has been chatting about the gun-wielding push since before the legislative session.
“I grew up in a military town,” Clark told WMAZ on Jan. 6. “We can ask young men and women to go away to a desert and give them a gun to defend our freedoms, but when they come back here to our classrooms, were gonna tell them they have to be defenseless.”
The AJC reports that state Rep. John Meadows, R-Calhoun, who co-sponsored the “guns everywhere” bill last year and chairs the Rules Committee, isn’t interested in seeing any major gun bills on the House floor this session. Unless something changes, the bills might not make it far in 2015.