ATLANTA — The Georgia-based president of the National Rifle Association says he does not think gun laws need to change in light of the deadly shooting at Barrow County’s Apalachee High School. The NRA has resisted such laws for decades.
"That’s the problem. It’s the improper use of those firearms," said Bob Barr, a former Georgia congressman and U.S. attorney who was chosen last spring as president of the NRA.
Barr says the problem wasn’t the assault rifle used to shoot 11 people at Apalachee High School (an additional two people were injured, but not by gunfire, according to the GBI).
Instead, he says, the issue was the alleged gunman’s home environment – where police say he obtained the weapon unsupervised.
"Where you have children, teenagers who don’t have any strong home environment, very little oversight – that, I think, is the main issue we need to grapple with," Barr told 11Alive's Doug Richards on Wednesday.
Asked about the argument often made that there are too many guns in circulation, Barr said, "I don’t know that any gun laws you have are going to properly teach an individual how to parent a child."
We asked Barr about bills that have failed in the Georgia legislature that would have required a household with a child to keep a gun locked up – called the Pediatric Safe Storage Act.
Backers say such a law could have stopped the killings at Apalachee High. But Barr says a locked-up gun at home is problematic.
"It certainly impedes a person’s right to defend themselves," he said. "If there is an intruder... those are precious seconds that could be lost that could mean the difference between life and death."