New Gun Bill Pre-Filed

NRA Facing New Challenge For Primacy On Gun Legislation

By Dick Pettys
InsiderAdvantage Georgia

(12/28/07) The NRA is facing a new challenge in Georgia over the parking lot guns bill it has warned is its only legislative priority. This time, the challenge is coming from a state legislator and members of another gun group who contend that the NRA is out of step with what Georgia sportsmen really want, and are offering their own alternative.

Challenging the NRA position are Rep. Tim Bearden, R-Villa Rica, and members of GeorgiaCarry.Org, who want to see the upcoming Legislature forget the NRA’s proposal and, instead, adopt what they are calling the 2nd Amendment Protection Act of 2008.

The measure was pre-filed by Bearden on Wednesday and can be found here as HB915.

(Not to put too fine a point on this, but Bearden and Georgia Carry don't view this so much as a challenge to the NRA but to the legislation the national group is pushing. Bearden, a supporter of the NRA, has said he views the NRA's bill as an infringement on private property rights. As for the proposed new bill, backers believe the NRA shouldn't have a problem with it. "A lot of what is in our bill is taken from bills the NRA has pushed in other states," said William Woodall, a lobbyist working with GeorgiaCarry. "It's their language.")

It might be helpful at this point to provide some abbreviated background for those who may have forgotten:

The NRA’s bill in Georgia and elsewhere last year was aimed at a 2002 incident in Oklahoma in which Weyerhauser Corp. fired eight employees when guns were found in their cars on company lots. (Just two months ago, a federal court upheld the dismissals and struck an Oklahoma law similar to the one the NRA is pushing in Georgia.)

The NRA contended the action was a blow at 2nd Amendment freedoms and their proposed corrective would have prohibited sanctions of the sort by employers. But the business community through the Georgia Chamber and other groups battled the legislation to a standstill, arguing the proposed corrective would have violated private property rights.

The result was that nothing passed during the 2007 session but during the struggle, Bearden’s separate bill to clarify Georgia’s “carry” laws on keeping pistols in the auto got entangled with the NRA bill and also failed to get a final vote.

Bearden’s new bill is significantly broader than what he proposed last year:

* It revises the state’s “carry” laws to eliminate restrictions on where a firearm must be kept in a car (under current law: glove box, center console or in plain view) and also specifies that weapons which are in plain view can be carried in public. (Only concealed weapons would need to be licensed.)

* It bans gun seizures, such as those that occurred in Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

* It contains a “Bloomberg” provision setting fines and jail terms for anyone who aids or abets in attempting to persuade a gun dealer to sell a firearm to someone other than the actual buyer.

Ed Stone of GeorgiaCarry said, “Finally, there is a bill in Georgia that offers real 2nd Amendment protection for Georgia gun owners and sportsmen. This bill clarifies Georgia’s carry laws, protects Georgia from baseless lawsuits from New York, restricts the government’s ability to confiscate lawfully owned guns during a time of crisis, and many other areas of interest to Georgians who cherish their 2nd Amendment rights as protected by the Constitution.”

An NRA source we talked with late on Thursday said the organization's lawyers are now looking over Bearden's bill. The source said he personally found much in the measure he can support but is concerned about language that runs counter to the NRA's position on parking lot guns. That remains a key goal for the organization, he said.

Meanwhile, GeorgiaCarry released four questions from a poll conducted Dec. 12 by InsiderAdvantage / Majority Opinion Research which had a direct bearing on the issue. (The polling operation is a unit of InsiderAdvantage but is separate from this publication. We use this information with the permission of GeorgiaCarry.org)

Of some 652 Georgians polled:

* 91.6 percent favored laws allowing citizens to defend their homes, property and families against armed intruders, carjackers or robbers. (Republicans: 96.2 percent; Democrats: 89 percent)

* 77.9 percent owned a gun or a rifle. (Republicans: 88.6 percent; Democrats: 75.7 percent)

* 76.4 percent favored (the other choice was “opposed”) the right of private property owners to set rules as to whether or not guns or weapons could be carried on the premises. (Republicans: 82.9 percent; Democrats: 73.5 percent)

* 63.3 percent opposed (the other choice was “favored”) the right of government to require private property owners to allow employees and visitors to bring guns onto their property. (Republicans opposed this by 65.8 percent; Democrats opposed this by 62.5 percent.)