Georgia House Passes School Safety Bill that Riles Up Anti-Gunners

The shooting at a high school in Winder, Georgia may not have been the worst school massacre of all time, but it was plenty bad. It was bad enough that the legislature had to do something or face losing their jobs in the next election cycle.

Years ago, Florida lawmakers were in a similar position. They passed things like red flag laws and a prohibition on long gun sales to adults under 21.

Georgia went a very different way.

And it’s not exactly making the anti-gun crowd happy.

The Georgia House overwhelmingly passed a school safety bill on Tuesday in response to the September 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School that left two teachers and two students dead, according to the Associated Press. Lawmakers are divided over whether the legislation strikes the right balance between student safety and privacy rights, while debates over gun control continue.

House Bill 268 passes in House

What we know: House Bill 268 passed by a 159-13 vote in the Georgia House and now moves to the Senate. The bill includes several key provisions aimed at preventing school violence, including the creation of a statewide student database. This database would store disciplinary, mental health, and law enforcement records, allowing schools to assess students who may pose a threat. Additionally, the bill requires schools to transfer student records more quickly when students change schools.

The legislation mandates that each Georgia school district create at least one new position dedicated to coordinating mental health treatment for students. It also requires the formation of behavioral threat management teams in schools, which would intervene when a student makes a threat. The state will establish guidelines for assessing threats, and students determined to be a danger would be removed from in-person classes while administrators decide on a course of action.

The bill also calls for suicide and violence prevention education for older students, aiming to provide resources to students before crises escalate into violence.

That’s right, there’s no gun control in there.

Nor should there be.

While the report goes on to quote some Democratic lawmakers who are upset at the lack of it, the truth of the matter is that what happened in Winder wasn’t a failure of gun rights. This was a kid who’d had problems with bullying, had some mental health issues at play, and even threatened to carry out a mass murder prior to the events. Nothing at all was done to help this kid and possibly prevent the incident.

And let’s be real here, the kid’s father bought him an AR-15 and allowed him access to it whenever he wanted, even after being warned. A mandatory storage law wouldn’t have stopped this. A ban on so-called assault weapons would have just prompted the dad to get him a different kind of gun that would have been used in just the same way. No gun control law would have made a difference.

As a result, this bill focuses on things that actually would.

Plus, this effort will do more than stop the next mass murderer. It’ll help the kid who got bullied so much he’s thinking about taking his own life. It’ll help the girl who has a terrible home life and is thinking about running away, which would only result in her being trafficked. It can do a lot more good than any gun control law ever could.