Ossoff, Guns, and Georgia: The Disparity Between the State’s Senators and Views on Gun Rights

My home state of Georgia is pretty good on guns. We could be better, sure, but we’re also a lot better than some supposedly pro-gun states. I’m looking at you, Texas.

However, we’ve got two very anti-gun senators. While Raphael Warnock isn’t up for re-election this time around, Jon Ossoff is.

While he’s better at keeping his mouth shut compared to Warnock–or the media just doesn’t like him as much–he’s the guy on the ballot this November, and there’s a bit of a disparity between his own policies and the flocking of gun companies to the state he represents.

As major gun manufacturers relocate from Virginia to Georgia over firearm regulations, constitutional experts told the Daily Signal that the increasing momentum for left-leaning policies in the Peach State could jeopardize the manufacturers’ new home.

Their remarks come as Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., runs for reelection and former Atlanta Mayor , who is endorsed by former President Joe Biden, eyes the governor’s mansion.

Polls show that both candidates have a favorable chance of winning their respective seats.

“From the policy perspective, every time you have elected officials in office that are not protecting the Second Amendment, one runs the risk of losing ground to their policies,” Zack Smith, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Constitutional Government, told the Daily Signal.

…

While Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp welcomed the move, saying his state “endures support for constitutional freedoms,” Republican political operatives say Ossoff’s anti-gun stance could jeopardize future moves by gun manufacturers.

“Whether it’s stripping law-abiding citizens of their right to safely own firearms, or protecting criminal illegals like Laken Riley’s killer, Jon Ossoff always puts the radical Left first,” National Republican Study Committee spokesman Nick Puglia told the Daily Signal.

I’d love to be able to say that these polls are wrong, but considering how Warnock and Ossoff both won their seats in the first place, and Warnock defended it to get a full term in the Senate, I can’t.

And that’s definitely going to be troubling for some of these businesses that have come to Georgia for a more friendly environment. Moves from one state to another aren’t exactly cheap and easy. It’s bad enough when you’re moving a household. A business is another matter, as you have to move at least some key employees, all your equipment, and re-establish yourself in your new location with new hires, training them up, and try to do it without missing a beat for your customers.

That’s no easy task.

So, when they’re here, they’re here, and if the regulatory environment changes, it’s not easy to correct the issue.

While Keisha Lance Bottoms would be more of a problem for gun companies that came to the Peach State, Ossoff’s re-election would be a signal that Bottoms’s winning wouldn’t be some aberration, as if voters just didn’t like Rick Jackson. It would be a signal that the state may be rolling blue, and that’s bad news.

If there’s good news here, it’s that the state is currently districted in such a way that it’s unlikely a Governor Bottoms would be able to do what Abigail Spanberger and company did in Virginia. There just isn’t a case where the legislature would be willing to go along with a gun control agenda like that, and redistricting isn’t on the table for Bottoms, either.

Still, it’s not great news for folks like me who live here.

Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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