The Georgia General Assembly needs to stop mandating K-12 schools be "Gun Free Zones" (State law does give a wink and a nod to local school boards, allowing them to decide to arm teachers and staff, but lawmakers know they would never do that, with very few exceptions, leaving the vast majority unprotected).
Gun Buster Image created by Author
Ironically, state law calls school property and buildings a "school safety zone" (OCGA 16-11-127.1). I suppose this law in general prohibiting firearms carry for law-abiding citizens is meant to keep everyone safe from criminals that will carry anyway? Right.
This disarmament philosophy only works when all entry points are protected by armed guards and metal detectors, like lawmakers provide themselves at the Capitol Building. Even so, our schools shouldn't have to be run like prisons, as this further indoctrinates children into the poisonous sheep mentality which places the responsibility of self-protection on the shaky shoulders of the government, instead of where it belongs - on us individual citizens.
After the mass school shootings in Parkland, Florida (2018) and Uvalde, Texas (2022), the usual mantra to dial 911 and wait for help rings hollow.
Regardless, no state politician in Georgia is advocating that schools receive these protective measures, so tax-dollar protected politicians should stop making it a crime for licensed adults to carry their firearms as a defense for themselves and the children they care for at school. Those lives matter too.
State lawmakers KNOW the status quo doesn't work, and if they don't take real steps to fix it, that means THEY DON'T CARE, or at least it means they don't care enough to let people have effective tools to protect themselves in a school "safety" zone. What that is, is for the government to STOP making self-defense preparedness a CRIME.
It's high time they stop playing politics with innocent lives. Evil will strike again, and the best way to save the most lives is to shoot down murdering maniacs on the spot.
Disarming teachers, staff, parents and other caretakers as if they are children not to be trusted with guns, is to leave actual children defenseless, not to mention the adults too.
Police often take minutes to arrive, and victims under fire don't have minutes to spare.
Therefore, the best security option is first responders that are already on the scene: teachers, staff, visiting parents, etc. Plenty of these already possess a valid Georgia Weapons Carry License, having passed their state and federal background checks, and are willing and able to be frontline defenders. So why can't they be?
To that best option our state politicians say "NO", passing the buck to local school boards that also say "NO".
So we are left back at square one, with innocent lives being sitting ducks in a barrel, with Gold Dome Republicans afraid to remove from us the shackles of the threat of jail, so that we citizens can exercise our God-given right of self-defense even in K-12 schools.
It's a crying shame they don't do so.
If saving children's lives won't help politicians grow a backbone, nothing will.
Note: According to OCGA 16-11-127.1 a "lawful weapons carrier" may be armed on their person in a "school safety zone" when such person carries or picks up a student. Not all judges, prosecutors, or juries may agree with the literal wording of this statute, so doing so would be risky at best. We need to expect better from our elected lawmakers who are supposed to have our best interests at heart.
Do you want to see greater self-defense liberty in Georgia? Join GA2A (formerly Georgia Carry). I've been a member since 2010. This article was not written on behalf of GA2A, but is my own personal work.
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