New Anti-Gun Governors May Face Significant Hurdles in Pushing Agenda – Bearing Arms

Come January, a lot of us will have new governors. For some of us, that means a stern push for gun control in previously pro-gun states. I’m talking about me, for one, because Governor-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms and her fellow travelers have already started that push.

Georgia is far from alone in this, too.

However, there’s a massive hurdle the Democrats are going to have to overcome if they hope to enact their anti-gun agenda. That’s the fact that they don’t have full control.

In Georgia, Governor-elect Bottoms will also face a divided Legislature. Outgoing Republican Governor Brian Kemp enjoyed a gun-friendly, GOP-led Legislature that also enacted permitless carry in 2022 and allowed more licensed concealed carriers to bring guns in from other states. Democrats flipped the state House last week. Republicans will still control the Senate, but only by a thin two-seat margin. 

Georgia Democrats have proposed bills in recent sessions that would ban anyone subject to a protective order or convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence from possessing guns, implement universal background checks, enact a red flag law, and set criminal penalties for leaving a gun accessible to a child. They all stalled. 

Democratic state Representative Shea Roberts, who sponsored some of those bills, said she’s hoping the new governor will establish a state gun violence prevention center that will direct resources to communities for intervention efforts. In the Legislature, Roberts wants to see safe gun storage requirements and red flag legislation advance. 

“I can’t speak at this point as to what the package will look like or what our strategy will be because there are a lot of people who are going to be involved,” she told The Trace. “But I can tell you that I will be actively working to get something done in this arena because I’ve had to fight numerous gun bills and watched permitless carry get passed.” 

The GOP-controlled Senate is going to be a barrier, Roberts admitted, though with only a two-seat majority, Republicans won’t be able to afford a single absence. “At least in the House, we will control the agenda, we will control the messaging, we will control the resolutions, and we will control the bills,” she said. “Even if we can’t get everything we want passed, we’re going to be talking about things.”

And it should be noted that the Lt. Gov. is the one who serves as the president of the Senate here in the Peach State, which means that if there’s any way to force the issue, Democrats will do so, particularly if there’s an absence.

I fully expect these past bills to resurface come January, and then we’ll get a test of the mettle of the remaining Republicans in the Senate. If even one is remotely anti-gun, then we’re likely to see at least some of these measures get a vote when someone is out with the flu or something else.

Georgia isn’t the only state with this kind of setup. Texas also has a divided legislature, which might be the best bulwark gun rights can hope for after the absolute shellacking Republicans took in the midterms.

In states like Iowa and Ohio, the governorships flipped, but the legislature didn’t. This is especially interesting in the case of Ohio, because while Mike DeWine was never a pro-gun Republican, he’d at least sign legislation into law. That’s not going to happen over the next four years, so any gains will have to be won in the judiciary.

In essence, though, while Democrats made a lot of headway in previously deep red states, they didn’t necessarily win enough to actually change all that much with regard to gun laws absent some sort of shenanigans.

Not that either party is above some shenanigans, mind you, but it does mean that a wary GOP can stave off most of that sort of thing and hopefully do so enough that they do more than hold onto what they have in two years, instead winning back part of the trifecta they’d long enjoyed in states with now-divided legislatures.

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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