(Georgia Recorder) — The chair of a Senate committee tasked with reducing gun deaths among Georgia children has filed legislation to create a statewide database to notify districts of safety concerns from transfer students and to install a “gun czar” to oversee gun safety.
“Georgia has the eighth highest rate of unintentional shootings by children in the United States, and I hope that kind of sinks in with members that are present here today,” said Sen. Emanuel Jones, a Decatur Democrat. “And it should also be stated that the highest incidence of pediatric deaths in Georgia is caused by unintentional gun shootings. To me, those numbers are just staggering and really unacceptable, and Georgia can do better.”
Atlanta Democratic Sen. Rashaun Kemp, a former teacher and principal, said administrators need to be aware of potential threats.
“As a high school principal, we all know that it’s important to get information about our students’ academics, but also it’s even more critically important to ensure that we are getting information as to issues and concerns that schools have had with their students. It is critically important for all parents to know that their children are in safe environments. And as a former educator who had a student bring a gun to school, having information shared between schools is critically important and can’t just stop at academics.
The debate over gun safety became more immediate for many Georgians when in September, two students and two teachers were killed in a shooting at Apalachee High School. The 14-year-old accused gunman had allegedly been interviewed by the FBI in connection with shooting threats at a different school in another district more than a year before the attack, leading some to call for greater communication between districts.
The idea could find support from top Republicans, including House Speaker Jon Burns and State Superintendent Richard Woods, who have both called for legislation to increase record sharing among school districts as a way to bolster safety.
Jones said that under his bill, the program would be administered by the Department of Education, and data would be passed along like other information that moves along with a transfer student.
“I don’t see any privacy concerns that should be addressed or could even possibly be that big of a concern when it comes to a child needing medical attention, needing quality care that they may have received at their previous school system,” Jones said. “And I would hope that the parents would expect that their child will continue to receive that same quality of care at the incoming school system, so I do not see that as a privacy concern, I see it more as a safety concern.”
Jones’ gun czar position would oversee efforts to promote gun safety.
“This person, this czar, as I call it, will have responsibilities to disseminate information to all of our schools, K through 12. This person will have the responsibility of working with industry and defining best practices, and this person will have the responsibility of working with the legislators to ensure that as we move forward, we are focusing on those issues that are critical in ensuring the safety of our kids throughout our school system.”
Jones said similar ideas have been successful in other states, including conservative ones.
“This is not anything new as it pertains to gun safety,” he said. “As a matter of fact, the state of Texas has been doing this for well over 20 years. North Carolina, Utah, and even other red states have a position very similar to this in their legislative branch.”
Atlanta Democratic Sen. Elena Parent, chair of the Senate Democratic caucus, also announced a pair of bills aimed at gun safety, both based on previous efforts.
The first would make it more difficult to purge someone who has been involuntarily committed for mental health purposes from the FBI database that determines whether one is eligible to purchase a firearm. Under it, being taken off the list would require a hearing rather than simply being removed after five years.
Parent’s other bill would create a misdemeanor penalty for failing to properly secure a firearm if a minor accesses it and hurts someone.
In recent years, the House and Senate passed separate bipartisan plans that aimed to encourage Georgian gun owners to lock up their weapons through tax incentives rather than punishment. Both passed their own chambers with wide margins, but neither chamber approved the other’s plan.
Parent said she prefers the punitive approach, but she indicated she may be open to an incentive-based bill.
“By not saying ‘That is not something that you are legally allowed to do under our state’s code,’ by that not being there, that sends a message,” she said. “That sends a message, like, it’s just fine to leave your gun lying around kids. So that, to me, is one of the reasons that it is important to have it stated in Georgia code that it is not legal to leave a gun around minors.”
“That is not to say that other ways to get at that problem don’t have merit, but I do believe that part of what our laws do is they represent our values as a society, and if those laws are so at counter purposes with the way you want people to behave, then you need to look at that piece of it, too,” she added.
