Georgia State Rep. Tom Kirby presents CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb with the original Resolution 1655 affirming the state’s defense of the right to keep and bear arms.
When he recently spoke in Atlanta at the GeorgiaCarry.org at their annual convention’s dinner, Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, came away with something special, the original signed and framed House Resolution 1655, in which the Georgia House calls on Congress to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
The resolution further expressed the State of Georgia’s “commitment to protecting the rights of our citizens against any attempt to curtail those rights.”
Gottlieb accepted the original document, signed by the clerk of the Georgia State House with the official state seal affixed, from State Rep. Tom Kirby of the state’s 114th District and a prime sponsor of the resolution.
Georgia Carry has, in a very short time, grown to more than 7,300 members. The organization, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “lobbied heavily” for the state’s new gun law that expands where legally-armed citizens can carry firearms. The expanded list includes churches, government buildings under certain conditions, public schools and bars, the newspaper said.
The new law has been criticized by gun control organizations.
House Resolution 1655 said:
WHEREAS, the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed”; and
WHEREAS, the intent and purpose of the Second Amendment is to preserve and guarantee, not grant, the preexisting right of individuals to keep and bear arms; and
WHEREAS, the Constitution of the United States provides very specific and limited powers to the federal government then reinforces those limitations in the Tenth Amendment, stating, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”; and
WHEREAS, the Constitution clearly states that Congress has no authority to infringe on the people’s Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, including any attempt to ban or restrict ownership of a firearm including but not limited to a semiautomatic firearm or any magazine of a firearm, or to require any firearm, magazine, or other firearm accessory to be registered in any manner; and
WHEREAS, no public servant in the State of Georgia has the authority to enforce or attempt to enforce any federal act, law, statute, rule, or regulation relating to a firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition owned or manufactured commercially or privately in Georgia and that remains exclusively within the borders of the state; and
WHEREAS, the State of Georgia may defend the rights of the citizens of this state in a federal prosecution for a violation of federal law that is in direct conflict with the United States Constitution relating to the manufacture, sale, transfer, or possession of a firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition owned or manufactured and retained exclusively within the borders of this state.
NOW, THEREFOPRE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, that the members of this body join in requesting that Congress protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in expressing the State of Georgia’s commitment to protecting the rights of our citizens against any attempt to curtail those rights.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Clerk of the House of Representatives is authorized and directed to transmit appropriate copies of this resolution to the Georgia congressional delegation.