“I want to express my condolences to our community, our school system, our children, our parents who had to witness this event today. It’s obvious that what you see behind our backs today is wrong,” said an emotional Smith, a Barrow native.

Fall

The shooting is likely to prompt further calls for gun safety measures in the upcoming session of the state Legislature, which is set to begin in January. A Senate study committee on safe firearm storage was set to meet for the first time Thursday morning.

The five-member commission is chaired by Democratic Decatur Senator Emanuel Jones and includes three Republicans and two Democrats.

“As Chairman of the Senate Firearms Safe Storage Study Committee, I am committed to finding solutions to stop these tragedies before they happen,” Jones said in a statement. “This is not about violating Second Amendment rights, but about protecting our children and keeping them safe. The technology now exists to effectively secure firearms, ensuring they don’t fall into the hands of people who shouldn’t have access to them, especially children. On average, 1,927 people die from gunshots in Georgia each year — these aren’t just numbers; they’re lives lost and families broken. We need to do more.”

Georgia residents have been shocked by several high-profile shootings in recent years. In 2021, a gunman killed eight people, including six women of Asian descent, at spas in the Atlanta metropolitan area, and in 2023, a shooting at an Atlanta medical center left one person dead and several city blocks under a lengthy lockdown.

These incidents, coupled with others across the country such as the 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting, have prompted Georgia lawmakers to look for ways to make students safer.

Kemp boasted about the funds, which included a $103.9 million recurring budget line item for school safety, which equates to $45,000 for each Georgia public school to fund safety measures.

Democrats have called for more steps. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek, won a rare victory for gun safety advocates last year when she passed a gun-storage bill that would penalize gun owners who negligently allow firearms to fall into the hands of unsupervised children if those children end up hurting themselves or others.

That bill failed to pass, as did another bill, described as a compromise, that would have provided a tax credit of up to $300 for gun security devices such as safes and trigger locks.

Earlier this year, the parents of a Michigan school shooting suspect were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter for failing to stop their child from carrying out the attack that killed four people.

Reactions

Tributes and calls for new firearms safety regulations have poured in from across the country.

President Joe Biden said the shooting turned the back-to-school season into “another horrifying reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart” and called on Congress to pass new gun laws.

“After decades of inaction, Republicans in Congress must finally say ‘enough’ and work with Democrats to pass common-sense gun safety legislation,” he said in a statement. “We must once again ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require secure storage of firearms, implement universal background checks, and end immunity for gun manufacturers. These measures will not bring back the lives of those tragically lost today, but they will help prevent further tragic gun violence from tearing families apart.”

Vice President Kamala Harris said Wednesday’s deadly school shooting in Georgia is another reason to step up efforts to end the epidemic of gun violence that affects young people across the country.

The Biden-Harris administration announced new gun safety initiatives in March aimed at preventing mass school shootings and other gun violence involving young people, including a greater focus on mental health services and preventing students and people in crisis from accessing guns.