(Georgia Recorder) — As the 2024 Legislative session nears its end, House Bill 971, which would provide a tax credit of up to $300 for gun safety devices like safes and trigger locks, this week passed through the Senate Finance Committee, where its sponsor, Augusta Republican Rep. Mark Newton hopes it will move forward through the full Senate, on its path to becoming a law.
Democratic Rep. Michelle Au, a supporter of gun safety measures, said she felt hopeful about the odds of the bill making it to the governor’s desk.
“I think we’ve moved the needle; we’ve gotten to the point that not only do we get Republican co-sponsors onto this Safe Storage Tax Credit Act, but we get it passed almost unanimously out of the House – so that’s good progress,” she said.
Members on both sides of the aisle have different reasons for their support of the gun safety bill.
Newton’s reasons include the belief that more people may be inclined to own a gun because of crime rates and the defund the police movement, while many of Au’s reasons for gun safety are related to children and teens.
“Once you have some Republican sponsors and they are willing to say, ‘Yeah, this is a smart idea. Of course, we want to encourage people to store their weapons,’ once it becomes not an issue that divides people, I think that’s the biggest step to gaining some traction,” said Heather Hallett from the Georgia Majority for Gun Safety.
While there has traditionally been a large amount of partisanship in the Georgia Legislature surrounding gun regulations, some bills have received bipartisan support.
One surprising source of bipartisan support is GA2A, a gun rights advocacy group that labels itself as “Georgia’s no-compromise voice for gun owners.” The Second Amendment advocacy group gave its rare support for a Democrat-sponsored bill, House Bill 855, which, like HB 971, aimed to create a $300 income tax credit for safe storage devices.
With gun violence being the No. 1 cause of death for U.S. children and gun safety bills that were sent to public safety committees in the past not receiving hearings, groups like the Georgia Majority for Gun Safety, a coalition of several groups, have worked with sympathetic legislators including Au to reassign firearm-related bills from public safety to a committee that focuses on health issues in an attempt to reframe the issue.
Some of the bills that focus on the issue of gun safety for children included Au’s bill, House Bill 161, which got a rare committee hearing last year but did not receive a vote. Known as the Pediatric Safe Storage Act, this bill would have created criminal penalties for gun owners who were found to have left a gun unsecured if a minor got to the gun and used it to harm a person or property, with some exceptions.
While Au’s bill did not cross chambers this year, she said that it will be a priority for next session and still appreciates the progress so far.
“There’s a lot of different ways to make progress – continuing to advance HB 971 while we work on the pediatric safe storage act is part of a larger piece of work that we are continuing to do beyond this year,” said Au.
The advance of Newton’s bill still leaves the question of whether it does enough to tackle the firearms safety concerns gnawing at many Georgians.
“It’s an area where I feel like if the public starts to say, ‘No, we don’t tolerate this, we can make our laws match public opinion a little bit more,’ – and if you talk to people, regular Georgians, Republicans, Democrats, gun owners, non-gun owners, most people support ‘common sense’ regulations,” said Hallett.
The Georgia Majority for Gun Safety’s next top priorities will be advocating for funding for community violence intervention programs, de-escalation training and requiring guns to be secure when in vehicles.
“We appreciate the efforts that legislators on both sides of the aisle are making, but we don’t need to wait,” said Bliss Stone, from Georgia Moms for Change. “We need to find solutions, and we’d like to see our legislators work together.”
Reporter Ross Williams contributed to this article.
