Lucy McBath’s DNC speech marks a ‘sea change’ in Georgia over gun laws

CHICAGO — When U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath got word she landed a prime-time speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention, she viewed it as more than a chance to amplify her call for firearms restrictions by sharing the story of her son’s murder.

It’s also an opportunity before thousands of delegates at the United Center, and millions more viewers at home, to solidify a dramatic shift for Georgia Democrats over gun laws.

Not long ago, serious statewide Democratic contenders either ran as pro-gun candidates or studiously avoided the topic entirely. Now, McBath and other Georgia Democrats are helping to lead the nation’s charge for stricter regulations.

And there’s no clearer signal of what McBath calls a “sea change” in Georgia politics than the party’s decision to put her front and center Thursday with others victimized by gun violence to make a case for new gun rules.

“There’s a scourge of gun violence, and people definitely recognize this is a public health crisis,” said McBath, who is considering a run for governor in 2026 . “We can still find a commonsense balance so that we’re protecting ourselves.”

Or as she put it during the convention: “Our losses do not weaken us. They strengthen our resolve. We will secure safer futures that we all deserve. We will organize. We will advocate. We will run for office.”

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Nowadays, support for gun control is standard fare for state Democrats. Candidates running for higher office boast of their feuds with the gun lobby. They rally with demonstrators after mass shootings bring tragic new attention to their demands.

And the party’s top contenders made their call for gun restrictions a central plank in two campaigns against Gov. Brian Kemp, who kept the promises he amplified in shotgun-wielding campaign ads to loosen firearms rules.

But for decades, Democrats in Georgia took a starkly different stance. Gov. Zell Miller refused various attempts at gun control measures, and his successor, Roy Barnes, won endorsements from the National Rifle Association in 1998 and 2002. Other top Democrats curried favor from gun groups.

Miller, who died in 2018, summed up his approach in his 2003 book:

“Southern voters may say they’re for gun control, and they may well be for gun control,” Miller wrote in “ A National Party No More ,” “but they simply don’t trust anybody who spends too much time talking about it.”

That’s the strategy that Rick Dent, a veteran Democratic consultant , employed over decades in Southern politics.

He helped elect a trio of Southern governors in the 1980s and 1990s: Miller in Georgia, Ray Mabus in Mississippi and Don Siegelman in Alabama. All had the blessing of the nation’s preeminent gun lobby.

“I’ve always been proud of this fact: Every major candidate I ever worked for got the NRA endorsement, and we worked really hard to get it,” Dent said. “And we did because it was important not to be seen as weak on crime.”

It also brought instant cachet among some hard-to-reach voters, he said, as well as a rush of grassroots volunteers. But the rise of gun violence, along with mass shootings at schools, festivals and other seemingly safe places, has chipped away at support.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution polls regularly show most Georgians — and even most Republicans — oppose permissive gun measures. But the most fervent conservatives, the very kind who dominate lower-turnout nominating contests, often see them as top issues.

Credit: robert.andres@ajc.com

“It’s put Republicans in a corner because the public has shifted. And Republicans are afraid to move at all for fear of being accused of being weak on crime,” Dent said.

“How would you get a Republican nomination if you’re in a primary and you start talking about reining in the Second Amendment?”

In Georgia, that dynamic has played out with a series of hard-fought gun expansions passed over the objection of Democrats. The most significant recent change is a law Kemp supported and signed in 2022 that lets Georgians carry concealed handguns without a permit.

It marked perhaps the biggest rollback of firearms restrictions since a 2014 law that allowed residents to legally carry firearms in some schools, bars and churches.

But the overwhelming Republican support for that measure masked an internal GOP debate over how to address mass shootings — and whether to stand pat on loosening regulations or push for more far-reaching changes.

Kemp and his allies have shifted focus toward bolstering school safety measures and hiring more security officers to patrol classrooms and campuses. Other prominent Republicans have advanced further-reaching ideas.

Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who is expected to run for governor in 2026, last year backed a proposal to offer public school teachers a $10,000 stipend if they take a firearms course and carry guns in school. It faced widespread opposition this year and failed to gain traction.

Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC

Still, state Sen. Jason Anavitarte, a Paulding County Republican who has sponsored pro-gun measures, said the issue has helped unify conservatives.

“Democrats no longer care about rural, blue-collar Georgians. Conservative Southern Democrats no longer exist,” Anavitarte said. “The modern Democratic Party is entirely focused on metro Atlanta progressives.”

To McBath and her supporters, the prospect of gun control measures in Georgia has moved from the fringes to the mainstream. She began advocating for new restrictions after her 17-year-old son Jordan Davis was shot to death in 2012 while sitting in a car at a Florida gas station.

In 2018, McBath flipped a long-held Republican U.S. House seat in Atlanta’s suburbs with a campaign that premised on gun control. State Rep. Michelle Au, a Democrat who represents a slice of that district, said fellow partisans were stunned when she scored a win “we thought was unthinkable.”

Now, Au said, Republicans in swing districts are “bending over backward to try to appear more moderate” on gun measures.

McBath has become a rising Democratic figure, now seeking a fourth term in the U.S. House representing a redrawn 6th Congressional District. While her campaigns focus on calls for health care expansions and abortion rights, gun legislation is at the core of her message.

“Something very dangerous and menacing is happening in our communities when we don’t feel safe to send our children to school, when we don’t feel safe sitting in our churches and synagogues, when we don’t feel safe when we go to festivals,” McBath said.

She added: “We shouldn’t have to live like this, and I talk to people every single day who do not want to live like this.”

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