CARLTON FLETCHER: In Georgia, it’s praise the Lord and pass the ammunition

“Handguns are made for killin’, They ain’t no good for nothin’ else.”

— Lynyrd Skynyrd

It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t love the old Westerns that run in syndication on TV. There’s nothing like watching two men draw down on each other in the middle of the street to settle an argument or one brave Clint Eastwood-in-”High Plains Drifter” type wipe out a posse of bad guys to get the old adrenaline flowing.

When our Republicans now in charge of the Georgia General Assembly get through with their election-year lawmaking during the current legislative session, Western lovers should get to see some of their favorite scenes play out in real time on the streets of Albany and other cities in the state.

Gov. Brian Kemp, in his quest to hold off David Perdue and then withstand the challenge of Stacey Abrams, the woman who almost beat him in the last gubernatorial election, has doubled down on the “we’ve-got-to-show-Georgia-voters-we’re-tough” rhetoric by jumping on the bandwagon bearing legislators who are pushing the so-called Constitutional carry legislation that would, essentially, open it up for anyone in the state to carry deadly weapons: no waiting, no questions asked, no background checks.

In the guise of “protecting our 2nd Amendment rights,” gun-crazy Georgia legislators — many of whom have fat checks from the gun lobbies in their pockets — along with Kemp, are pushing to make it legal for anyone to walk the streets with a gun on his or her hip. It’s not bad enough that gun violence has escalated to the point that many law-abiding citizens are afraid to leave their home after dark, now we want to let all the crazies loose with what amounts to a license to kill.

Oh, sure, we can fall back on the 2nd Amendment — which does not, by the way, advocate for everyone to walk around with a gun strapped to their hip, it’s merely a means through which a militia threatened by a too powerful government might maintain the weaponry to challenge that government if need be — and we can talk about how “we’re the good guys and we need weapons to protect ourselves from the bad guys,” but the truth is such idiotic laws only heighten the probability of gun-related violence, both intentional and accidental.

The crazies who shoot little children in schools — and, yes, super-kook Marjorie Greene, those things really happen, they’re not made-up stories by QAnon-averse liberals — will no longer have to worry about being denied their semi-automatic weapons. Just run into any pawn shop or arms retailer, pick out a couple of nice pistols or rifles whose clips assure a minimum of reloading, and then walk in and start firing. Won’t it be fun to watch those little future liberals fall in puddles of their own blood while you listen to the voices in your head that say, “Keep firing?”

It was sickening to read of Georgia politicians who said they didn’t push hard for more lenient gun laws last session because of the Atlanta mass shooting during the time many among them were advocating for such measures as a means to “keep those liberals in Washington from touching our weapons.” Many said publicly they felt it not in the best interest — optics-wise — to essentially open the state up to easier access to guns with all those people just down the street lying in their caskets.

Their solution? Wait until next year when all the negative talk about gun violence — those damned hippie/pansy/liberals — and let’s get ‘er done before somebody shoots up another bunch of people and we’ll look like the ghouls we are by pushing for easier access to weaponry.

It’ll happen, no doubt. When you have a gerrymandered minority party running the state, they’re going to do everything they can to satisfy their gun-loving base. If a few more schools or businesses get shot up, well, that’s a small price price to pay. Just, as they say, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.