After Apalachee, Ga.'s Republican lawmakers split on gun safety rules

WASHINGTON — After four people were fatally shot last month at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Republicans in Georgia’s state Legislature were convinced it was time to back some of the gun safety measures that have long been pushed by Democrats.

But the same shift has not happened among Republicans in Congress, where the deadliest school shooting in the state’s history was barely discussed. GOP lawmakers from Georgia have been resistant to embrace gun safety measures, even as they express condolences for the victims at Apalachee.

Instead, U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, in the weeks since the shooting, has worked to make firearms more accessible and limit the federal government’s ability to regulate gun sales.

“We have guidelines right now called laws; we don’t need more of them,” said the Republican, who owns two gun stores. “In fact, I think we probably need less of them. In fact, I think there are a few laws that we could do away with.”

At the state level, Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns has said he would support new funding for mental health services and tougher penalties for people who call in or post threats to schools. But he also said he would be in favor of legislation to incentivize the safe storage of guns and to encourage the purchase of lockboxes or trigger locks.

That is not the way to respond to what happened in Apalachee, said U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, whose district includes the school.

“That’s not the problem,” he said. “The problem is not the gun.”

Collins said guns are a tool and should not be blamed for the mental health issues and “problems with morality” often at the heart of school shootings.

That kind of thinking has angered people such as U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., whose teenage son was shot and killed by a stranger in 2012. She ran for Congress, in part, because she was frustrated by the lack of federal action after a shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school left 17 dead.

Since her election in 2018, McBath has not been able to gain much traction for new gun restrictions. That is especially true since Republicans took control of the U.S. House in 2020, although Congress passed a federal gun safety law in 2022 after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. McBath said she will keep trying for more.

“We must have the courage to act together to pass these protections into law and stop the horror of gun violence,” she said in a statement.

Yana Batra, a junior at Georgia Tech, helped organize walkouts at schools across the state last month to push for stricter gun laws.

Batra said she was glad Burns proposed some changes at the state level, although she wanted him to go further by embracing other proposals from Democrats, such as red flag laws to temporarily confiscate firearms from people who have been deemed a threat.

She considers the incentives for safe firearm storage that some Georgia Republicans are now embracing as the “bare minimum that our Republicans can do in this moment.” Putting standards for gun storage into law would be even better, Batra said.

“We’re very grateful for the open perspective and the consideration of this legislation, but there’s so much more that we need to keep our students safe,” she said.

Collins dismissed the students’ protests altogether.

“They’re not adults, they’re still learning,” he said. “You know, emotions are high.”

Mark Rosenberg, a former assistant U.S. surgeon general, has long pushed for more research on the root causes of gun violence and legislation to address the issues. He said for too long Republicans have embraced the notion that any laws regulating the use of guns are akin to taking them away.

“They have basically painted this as black and white, all or nothing,” he said on The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s “Politically Georgia” podcast. “In truth, there are programs and policies that can both reduce gun violence and protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners.”

Rosenberg has advocated for universal background checks, red flag laws and safe storage.

Clyde is going the other way. The U.S. House last year signed off on his bill to prohibit the federal government from requiring registration for pistol braces, an accessory used to stabilize a pistol by fastening it to the shooter’s arm. The bill failed in the Senate on a party-line vote.

Two weeks after the Apalachee shooting, the House Judiciary Committee approved a separate proposal from Clyde that would roll back Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives rules that would require more people to register with the federal government in order to sell firearms. Clyde said the bill would allow the federal government to keep tabs on a larger number of gun sales and possibly create a national registry, long a redline issue for pro-gun lawmakers.

Clyde says his support for the Second Amendment is absolute. His campaign signs include an image of an AR-style rifle, and he passed out AR-15 lapel pins to colleagues to encourage them to show their support for protecting gun rights.

The Apalachee shooting was a tragedy that could have been avoided, Clyde said. But his solution is not limiting access to guns.

“You saw the school resource officer there stop it literally before it got even worse,” he said. “So what stopped the bad guy with a gun? A good guy with a gun.”