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Georgia Guns Linked to Crime Scenes in Other States

By Kamika Dunlap on June 18, 2010 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

A new report issued by an anti-gun group shows that guns from Georgia are linked to crime scenes in other states.

The report released by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence uses information from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (the ATF), which shows that guns sold in Georgia were recovered at more crime scenes outside its borders than any other state, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.

As previously discussed, Georgia has been looking at overhauling its gun laws.

Governor Sonny Perdue recently signed Senate Bill 308, which replaces the public gathering statute with a new gun law that criminalizes possession of weapons in some government buildings, courtrooms, jails and prisons, elementary and secondary schools, and the dormitories or residential housing at college campuses.

As previously discussed, the House also proposed a similar bill in which the firearm ban firearms would mainly be limited to jails, courthouses and prisons.

The new law signed by the governor repeals Georgia's 140 year-old public gathering law.

However, gun rights advocates say that the newly released report is misleading and used only to support criticism of Georgia's relatively liberal gun laws.

The ATF can only release aggregated numbers concerning traces of weapons recovered at crime scenes. That means the information is incomplete if there is break in the chain from the manufacturer to the distributor and then to the gun dealer.

Daniel Vice, senior attorney at the Brady Center, said 2,771 of the 34,617 crime scene guns recovered nationwide last year were first sold in Georgia. Following Georgia were Florida (2,636), Virginia (2,333) and Texas (2,220).

 

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