CARLTON FLETCHER: If you can’t get a gun in Georgia, you just ain’t trying

Mister Saturday Night Special, Got a barrel that’s blue and cold. That ain’t good for nothin’, But puttin’ men 6 feet in a hole.

— Lynyrd Skynyrd

If you’re one of the majority party politicians in Georgia, you don’t just double down on making guns available to the state’s general public — including the unstable patriots who think the only way to settle an issue is with bullets — you triple and quadruple your efforts.

This week, the Georgia Senate — voting along party lines in the Republican-controlled body — approved a bill creating a tax holiday on guns and related items. The proposed holiday would last for five days, beginning on the second Friday in October. As it is currently written, the bill would expire in June of 2029. 

Sen. Jason Anavitarte, who is sponsoring the bill, said its intent is to encourage people to get into hunting and help control the state’s deer population. He poo-pooed suggestions from Democrats that the tax holiday could increase gun crime.

“I think if we’re going to be concerned about the murder rate or we’re going to talk about security, then I think we all can agree that the price of supporting law enforcement, the price of public safety, is priceless,” he said. “You can’t put a cost on it in communities. So I think we’re going to continue to hear, as it relates to the Second Amendment, or even just this simple bill that promotes outdoorsmanship, the same tired, same old arguments that we’re going to hear from the other party on this as we go forward.”

Yeah, those damned tired old arguments about how gun violence has escalated to epidemic levels in Georgia, but our gutless officials are so deep in the NRA’s and other gun-nut lobbies’ pockets — and we can’t forget their good-ole-boy base — that they’d never think about coming up with ways to better control the sale of dangerous weapons. It’s common sense … we’ve got to find ways to get more weapons in the hands of people who are one cross word away from a good “cleansing.”

The argument that greater availability of weapons will help thin the deer population in the state would be a hoot if it weren’t for the fact that hunters already have enough firepower at their disposal to easily wipe every deer — and antelope, elk, buffalo, moose — off the face of the earth. Besides, the overwhelming majority of these hunters are only after trophies anyway. 

One Republican, Sen. Colton Moore of Trenton, said the bill proposed by Anavitarte did not go far enough.

“I would like to amend this bill to completely exempt firearms, gun safes and accessories 365 days a year,” he said. “It’s so ironic because this piece of legislation, it only allows the exemption right before an election, which is how convenient for politicians who want to say we stand strong for our Second Amendment rights, we’re gonna give the people a little gimme right here before election season.”

You might remember the nut-job Moore … last year he was suspended after unsuccessfully calling for a special legislative session to investigate Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s prosecution of former President Trump. So his suggestion that firearms be exempted from taxes year-round is par for that course.

In discussing the piece of legislation, these right-thinking, by-god-American officials made it clear they’re not going to give in to any pansy Democratic whining, like encourage the purchase of safes and other devices intended to make guns less of a threat.

Anavitarte said: “I don’t think that we can legislate whether somebody is educated or how they’re basically managing the firearms in the home. I think for every individual family member, including my own family, I think there’s a level of personal responsibility in how we educate adults, how we educate our youth.”

Just as there should be “personal responsibility” before someone is allowed to purchase and openly carry a dangerous weapon. Like that’s going to happen with this bunch pulling the strings. For now, it just ain’t the Georgia way.