A 14-year-old boy is in custody after a mass shooting at Apalachee High School in northern Georgia. Four people are dead, two students and two teachers. At least nine were injured. The boy was a student in the school. At this time, no information has been released about his identity or motive, what kind of gun was used or how the boy got the gun.
Governor Brian Kemp signed legislation weakening the state’s gun laws while sitting in a gun shop, surrounded by gun enthusiasts. Since 2022, Georgia has allowed individuals to carry guns without a permit, although public opinion polls showed that almost 70% of Georgians opposed permitless carry.
In 2022, Kemp proudly signed the new gun law:
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp on Tuesday signed a law allowing residents to carry handguns in public without a license or background check.
Kemp, a Republican, backed a similar proposal when he ran for governor in 2018, and expanding gun rights was a key part of his platform. He urged the legislature to take up the issue at a press conference earlier this year.
“(This bill) makes sure that law-abiding Georgians, including our daughters and your family too, can protect themselves without having to have permission from your state government,” Kemp said Tuesday before signing the bill into law. “This is an issue that I campaigned on in 2018 alongside so many members that are standing with us today. And by working together, we have gotten it across the finish line.”
A pro-gun control group called Everytown for Gun Safety ranked Georgia as one of the worst states in the nation (46th of 50). It described Georgia’s gun laws:
Georgia has some of the weakest gun laws in the country. The legislature passed a law requiring colleges and universities to allow guns on campus in 2017, and in 2022, Georgia repealed its last foundational policy by passing permitless carry legislation. Though Georgia repealed its Citizen’s Arrest law in 2021, the state still has a dangerous Shoot First law that allows a person to kill another in a public area, even when they can safely walk away from the danger.
If Georgia had the gun death rate of our National Leaders—the eight states with the strongest gun safety laws—we could save 17,987 lives in the next decade.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The massacres will continue until the Supreme Court is convicted as accessories before the fact.
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This insanity has been in the Republican Party a lot longer that Traitor Trump has controlled the GOP, as if it were a subsidiary of his family crime empire.
All Traitor Trump did was make the insanity worse with help from his fascist MAGA cult.
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I really enjoy reading your comments, Lloyd!
Thank you!
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Two of the victims were teachers. The school is about 30 miles from where I live. I work at school as a neurodevelopment provider. We happened to have our intruder drill today. My adult client was very unnerved by the drill. This trauma is all too real. As long as we support gutless politicians who won’t take on the gun lobby, then this terror will remain our reality.
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What does a neurodevelopment provider do? Please explain. Thanks!
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I work at a school that serves special needs students with a variety of learning and developmental deficits from profound ADHD to various forms of brain damage. The guiding philosophy is driven by the concept of neuroplasticity. That is that the brain and neurodevelopment pathways throughout the body are always growing. Therefore I serve a 31 year old client who has cerebral palsy and autism with a series of therapeutic activities meant to stimulate things like touch, sight, and the two hemispheres of the brain. It’s fascinating work that uses contemporary brain theory to help with improved mobility and independence.
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Thanks for the explanation! And for the work that you do with those who need it! 🙂
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Four people dead, four more families forever changed. But hey, Governor Kemp is in the good graces of the gun lobby, and those dollars will just keep rolling in…
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Kemp has blood on his hands.
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Will the good Governor, sometime very soon (like this week) be visiting the town of Winder particularly the families involved and teachers of Apalachee High School to explain how this policy will be the right one, despite this ‘unfortunate incident’?
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Gov Kemp will probably say that every teacher in the school should have been armed.
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The lack of reasoning in that bad film scenario of every teacher being a skilled and composed marksman, who would, let us not forget being willing to gun down a child. The last raving resort of gun fantasists
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Despite the horror of this act, I still cannot understand how it is reasonable to set aside the fact that the perp is a fourteen year old child. How arbitrary is it to try him as an adult? If we have have a juvenile system that takes into account that there are differences in an adolescent brain and an adult brain, it seems cruel to declare a fourteen year old an adult for purposes of prosecution. I am not minimizing what this boy did, but I think adults that allowed him to gain access to a deadly weapon should bear some responsibility. We need to rethink our love affair with guns and the gross misinterpretation of the second amendment.
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Retired, I hope his father is tried and punished for giving the boy an AR-15.
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People with children should be required to put their guns in a proper gun safe.
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RT,
In countries with real gun control, gun owners are required to have a safe for their guns.
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TODAY’S CONSERVATIVE U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICES HAVE INVITED LAWMAKERS TO MAKE SPECIFIC GUN REGULATIONS — on pages 54-55 of its Heller decision, the Court gave Congress and state lawmakers the outline and rationale to follow to create gun control laws that the Court will approve as constitutional: First, the conservative Court flatly declared in Heller that limits CAN be put on guns and on gun ownership, stating: “Like most rights, THE RIGHT SECURED BY THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS NOT UNLIMITED…” [it is] “…not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Those are the words of the CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY of the U.S. Supreme Court justices in their Heller ruling. “We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller [an earlier case decided by the Supreme Court] said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time’ [when the 2nd Amendment was written]. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons’.” The Second Amendment became part of the Constitution more than 230 years ago in 1791. The very first semi-automatic gun was not invented until nearly a 100 years after that, in 1885. Most guns in use at the time that the Second Amendment was written were single-shot muzzle loaders. The conservative Court went on: “Nothing in our [Heller] opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or on laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” The CONSERVATIVE majority DID NOT HAVE TO write these things into their ruling — but they did because they were INVITING Congress and state lawmakers to craft laws that fit the Court’s stated outlines to control the sale of guns in general and especially control and limit the sales of assault rifles and high-capacity magazine cases. But Congress doesn’t have the moral integrity or the decency to do that, even in the face of repeated slaughter of school children. So, why aren’t legislatures in Blue States crafting gun control laws that fit the standards provided by the Supreme Court? Tell lawmakers at every level right now that they have been given clearance by the Supreme Court to craft effective gun control laws — and hold lawmakers accountable at the ballot box if they fail to act. You can read the Court’s Heller ruling at: https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep554/usrep554570/usrep554570.pdf
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