I have a piece on The Hill today explaining why Georgia's lax gun laws may not be up to the challenge of intercepting dangerous people before they do any harm. Here is the gist:
When 22-year-old Rico Marley stepped out of the men’s room of an Atlanta Publix supermarket on March 24 – “armed to the teeth” – he presented both an imminent danger and a tricky legal question. He obviously needed to be stopped before someone was hurt, or worse. But what could be done so long as his conduct stayed within the bounds of Georgia’s deliberately permissive gun laws?
Fortunately, Marley was almost immediately confronted by two Atlanta police officers, who told him to raise his hands and remain still. He obediently complied with the command and surrendered without incident. A search revealed that Marley was wearing body armor and carrying six loaded firearms: four handguns in his jacket pockets, as well as a semi-automatic rifle and a shotgun in a duffle bag. The officers placed Marley under arrest and charged him with multiple felonies. The threat had been contained without incident.
There is good reason to believe, however, that the actual felony charges were a short-cut to place Marley in custody, because despite the manifest threat he presented, his actions until that moment were not clearly covered by Georgia’s firearms statutes.
He was not charged with any free-standing violation of gun laws.
In other words, the police essentially had to improvise charges against Marley in order to get him disarmed and into custody.
You can read the entire piece here.
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