Georgia: Comprehensive Pro-Gun Reform Passes State Senate, Sent to House for Concurrence

Contact your state Representative TODAY and urge him or her to agree to House Bill 60

Thanks to your active help and involvement, the Georgia Senate passed House Bill 60 with an additional amendment by a 37-18 vote last night.  Your support is still needed, however, to ensure that this comprehensive pro-gun reform receives a vote of concurrence in the state House TOMORROW before the General Assembly adjourns.   Please contact your state Representative immediately and urge him or her to agree to HB 60.

The Senate amended HB 60 by adding the legalization of hunting with a suppressed firearm, which your NRA supports, but also unfortunately changed legal carry in churches to opt-in with a $100 fine for infractions.  Even with these changes, your NRA fully supports HB 60 as the most comprehensive pro-gun bill in Georgia state history.

If passed and enacted into law, HB 60 would do the following:

• Remove fingerprinting for renewal of Weapons Carry Licenses (WCL).
• Prohibit the state from creating and maintaining a database of WCL holders.
• Create an absolute defense for the legal use of deadly force in the face of a violent attack.
• Remove the sweeping restrictions on legally carrying a firearm with a WCL in churches and bars, leaving this decision to private property owners.
• Lower the age to obtain a concealed WCL for self-defense from 21 to 18 for active duty military, with specific training.
• Allows for the use of firearm sound suppressors while hunting.
• Repeal the unnecessary and duplicative state-required license for a firearms dealer, instead requiring only a Federal Firearms License (FFL).
• Prohibit a ban on firearms in public housing, ensuring that the right to self-defense should not be infringed based on where one calls home.
• Codify the ability to legally carry, with a WCL, in sterile/non-secure areas of airports.
• Include a provision that would have the state report those persons who have been involuntarily hospitalized or have been adjudicated mentally deficient to the NICS system while also providing an ability for relief through an application process to the court system for the purpose of restoration of rights.
• State that under a declared state of emergency, all law-abiding gun owners will not have their Second Amendment rights restricted or infringed by executive authority through Emergency Powers protection.
• Strengthen current firearms preemption statutes through further clarification of the regulatory authority of local governments, excluding firearm discharge ordinances.

Enactment of HB 60 this year is absolutely critical for the advancement of your Second Amendments rights as a law-abiding gun owner in Georgia.  Please contact your state Representative TODAY to agree to HB 60, and forward this alert to family, friends and other fellow gun owners in Georgia and urge them to do the same.