On Tuesday, the Senate Study Committee on Firearm Safety Storage held its first meeting to discuss how Georgia can encourage safe firearm storage in households with young children.
Senate Resolution 203, the legislation to form the study committee, highlights that securely storing firearms is a way to decrease firearm violence and accidental death.
"This is not a gun deal," state Sen. Emmanuel Jones, Democratic chairman of the study committee from Henry County, firmly said of the committees' intentions at the beginning of the hearing.
Jones, who served in the United States Army for 19 years and is a gun owner himself, explained what he thought about when creating the study committee: firearm injuries to children.
In 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that firearm injuries were the leading cause of death among children and teens ages 1 to 19.
"What can we do to save as many children as possible from an untimely death associated with a weapon in someone's home that's not stored safely?" Jones said.
Some opportunities Jones thinks the committee has in discussing better firearm safety storage in Georgia include:
The committee includes Sens. Ben Watson (R-Savannah), Frank Ginn (R-Danielsville), Marty Harbin (R-Tyrone) and David Lucas (D-Macon).
"There's things that we can do that are smarter," Ginn said on the committee advocating for safer firearm storage in Georgia. "There's also things that I'm going to make sure that we don't do anything to take away or harm anybody's Second Amendment right."
"I think about guns being like a parachute," he said. "You only need one when you need one, and if you don't need one and you don't have one, then it's not doing you any good."
The committee hearing included testimonies from people affected by firearm safety storage incidents.
The first speaker to provide testimony was Mike Webb, a Georgia resident and gun owner since he was 12 years old, who grew up during a time when many people did not explore gun safety storage.
"We were taught basic gun safety in the field, but safe gun storage at home was almost never discussed," he said. "Our guns, sometimes fully loaded, were throughout the house."
Webb shared the story of unfortunately losing his 18-year-old son, Jared, to suicide in 1999 when he had access to a firearm at his grandparent's house.
"Nobody saw this coming, and I certainly didn't do enough to protect my child," he said. "Not much had changed. My parents still kept loaded guns lying around the house like they always did, just like millions of parents and grandparents do today."
After the tragic accident, Webb shared that he began studying gun safety and never kept a loaded gun accessible ever again.
Webb now advocates for better firearm safety rules in hopes of stopping children from dying at the hands of open firearms.
"I believe we can educate and create public awareness in our schools, churches, and public places and events," he said. "Expose good law-abiding gun owners to the benefits of safe gun storage. Even figure out a way to acquire and distribute free safety devices for guns."
Chairman Jones hopes that he and the committee can take some leadership in the effort for safer firearm storage throughout Georgia.
"I pledge that as long as I'm here, I will continue to work on this issue until we can move something forward because my goal is a reduction in child fatalities in young people," he said.
