ATLANTA – Even the reddest of red states can promote safe firearm storage without stepping on the Second Amendment, officials from two red states told Georgia lawmakers this week.
Republican state Rep. Steve Eliason of Utah and Kathy Martinez-Prather, director of the Texas School Safety Center, testified before the Georgia Senate Safe Firearm Storage Study Committee about steps they’ve taken in their states to encourage gun owners to lock up their firearms without imposing mandates.
“Safe storage is low-hanging fruit … one of the easiest things we can do,” said Volkan Topalli, a professor in the Department of Criminal Justice & Criminology at Georgia State University, who appeared with the out-of-state witnesses at a hearing Oct. 10. “Safe storage is not opposing Second Amendment rights.”
The Georgia Senate created the study committee back in March, but the issue of safe firearms storage took on greater urgency last month when two students and two teachers were shot to death at Apalachee High School near Winder.