Atlanta, Georgia — Second Amendment Daily has just begun to analyze in detail a 53-minute Georgia Public Broadcasting interview conducted on January 9, 2019 with Georgia House Speaker David Ralston where he plainly states that he is not in agreement with new Georgia Governor Brian Kemp on “Constitutional Carry” legislation for Georgia.
You can see in the video posted below that Ralston indicates he’s at odds with Governor Kemp.
What’s worse, as the interview moves forward, David Ralston places blame on constitutional carry / second amendment and religious liberty legislation for drowning out other issues he and many of his liberal Republican candidates for elected office wanted to talk about in 2018.
He even mentions the word, “hurtful”.
Ralston moves on to say that for the 2019 legislative session, Republicans should do “less of that kind of thing”.
It’s important to remember that the top issue in Brian Kemp’s Governor campaign was the Second Amendment.
Does David Ralston believe that was a mistake for Brian Kemp to go all in and promise during his 2018 campaign for Governor to sign Constitutional Carry into law should he make it into the Governor’s mansion?
Last year, House Speaker David Ralston sat at the helm of a Republican legislative body that lost more than a dozen seats in the Georgia House.
While some in the establishment gun lobby naively believe that constitutional carry will happen “when the time is right”, they ignore the fact that Speaker Ralston could only corral 96 votes (out of 180) for watered down “campus carry” legislation in 2017.
When Stacey Abrams introduced her HB 731 in 2017, a bill that would send the GBI to ban, confiscate, and destroy firearms, ammo, and magazines from millions of Georgians, one apologist and chief cheerleader for David Ralston, Andy McClure, proudly posted in an online former the following on January 14, 2016:
“Talk about a party doubling down. They just guaranteed GOP dominance for the next 30-40 years, maybe longer.”
How could Andy McClure have been so wrong about what is happening politically in Georgia? Is this the type of strategic political advice the Georgia Speaker of the House is getting?
The further the can gets kicked down the road, the less likely the time will ever be “right” for Georgia to become a Constitutional Carry state, leaving gun owners sitting ducks to bureaucratic and legislative overreach and abuse when someone like a Stacey Abrams comes along and wins the governor’s mansion.
What greater freedom is there than for a man or woman to be able to defend themselves without having to ask the government first for permission?
We’ll continue reporting on Ralston’s comments from this GPB interview as the week progresses.