Legislative Alert
- SB 175 Georgia. Brady Check Revision
Information
supplied by
Georgia Gun Owners at:
http://www.georgiagun.org
The Ga. Brady Check was enacted in 1995, years before the
current National Instant Check System (NICS) was implemented. It was
pioneering legislation aimed at showing how the NICS would work at
the state-level. It was managed by the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation (GBI).
Any person buying a pistol in Georgia under the system had to
get clearance from the GBI. The dealer selling the gun would call
the GBI, and if the GBI computers showed no reason to stop it, the
sale could proceed. The process often took just 5 or 10 minutes,
hence it was dubbed the "instant" check. The gun buyer paid a $5 tax
on each gun bought under the system to help offset the cost of the
system.
Years later, the NICS was activated at the federal level. The
first full year of operation was 1999. NICS applied to all firearms,
not just pistols, and was administered by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI). All firearms dealers in the U. S. were required
to comply with NICS, unless they were in a state (like Georgia) that
already had a state Brady Check. Unlike the Ga. Brady Check, there
was no special tax imposed on gun buyers under the NICS.
At that time, Georgia made the decision to keep the Ga. Brady
Check until the state could see if the NICS worked as good. The
evidence is that the NICS works just as good as the Ga. Brady Check.
NICS has the added benefit that there is no $5 tax on each gun
bought under the system.
SB 175 sponsored by pro-gun Sen. Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga)
would dismantle the Ga. Brady check, and direct gun dealers in
Georgia to use NICS. The $5 tax on each gun bought under the system
would be repealed, saving Georgia gun owners $$$$$$.
Many gun owners would like to see the Ga. Brady Check wiped
off the books altogether (full repeal). Regulation of gun sales in
Georgia would then automatically default to federal law and NICS.
Full repeal would have no additional practical effect, but it would
get rid of a totally unnecessary and useless layer of state-level
gun control, which is the right thing to do.
While it's not "full repeal", SB 175 is a good first step.
Georgians would reap the benefits of removing the cost of the Brady
Check from the state budget, while repealing the $5 tax on each gun
bought under the present system.
SB 175 follows:
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