Georgia Senate Passes Bill Creating Tax-Free Holiday for Guns

The state of Georgia will, at various times, offer sales tax holidays for things. A big one is right before school starts back. Things useful for school are sold tax-free, making it a fantastic time to buy a new computer or something along those lines.

Over the last couple of years, there’s been talk of doing something similar with firearms and firearm-related goods, particularly hunting gear.

Last year, the state Senate passed just such a bill, but the House failed to act on it. Now, the senators are trying it again, but not without some anti-gun hysterics.

The Georgia Senate’s Republican majority passed legislation Wednesday seeking a waiver on sales taxes for firearms over an 11-day period in October.

Senate Bill 47 passed 31-21 in a party-line vote following a partisan debate, with Republicans touting gun rights and Democrats pointing to the mass school shooting at Apalachee High School in September.

“Are you all tone deaf? It’s like taking a knife and sticking it into the heart of a parent who has lost a child,” said Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta. “What is this blood lust for guns?”

Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes, D-Duluth, held a baby during her speech on the Senate floor, saying the Republican party’s priorities “are jacked up.”

Those are bold words from someone representing a party that opposes deporting actual criminals back to their home countries, despite how their victims or surviving family members might feel about that. Is that not “taking a knife and sticking it into the heart of” those people as well?

Of course, Senate Republicans didn’t just roll over.

Republicans said the line of criticism was, in the words of Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, “disgusting.” 

Fellow GOP Sen. Carden Summers of Cordele said anything — a pickup truck, like the one driven into a crowd in New Orleans last month, or a pressure cooker, like one used to bomb marathon runners in Boston a dozen years ago — can be used as a weapon.

Other Republicans pointed out that there is a right to self-defense and that hunting is big business in Georgia. That latter point is important because people travel to the state to hunt. A sale tax holiday might encourage them to spend their money for guns and gear within the state, creating a better economic boost that will benefit the state in the long run.

The truth is that Parkes is like many other anti-gun Democrats who think that because something bad happens involving a firearm, absolutely nothing positive about guns should ever be advanced, considered, or anything else, all while acting completely different about almost anything else.

The bill passed, thankfully, but that’s not surprising. It passed last year and would probably pass again next year.

The issue now is that the House needs to act on it, and they didn’t in 2024. It seems we Georgians need to step up our game and force the issue here, and not just because it lets us buy guns at a bit of a discount. We need to do it because it’s simply the right thing to do for the entire state of Georgia.