ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers introduced another version of an 11-day sales tax holiday for the purchase of firearms, ammunition, gun safes and other firearm-related accessories.
Members of the Georgia Senate voted the bill through to create the tax holiday during hunting season, but it wasn’t without a fight.
Channel 2′s Richard Elliot was at the Capitol, where Democrats in the Senate called the bill’s supporters “tone deaf” for pushing the bill just months after the deadly shooting at Apalachee High School.
Debate on the floor went for nearly two hours as what was initially a debate about a sales tax holiday became a fiery discussion about the Second Amendment.
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“This is the message that we think is appropriate? In this place? You know it’s not! You know it’s not the message we should be seeing,” Sen. Nan Orrock (D-Atlanta) said during the debate.
But Republicans fired right back, accusing their Democratic colleagues of exploiting a tragedy.
“Listen, don’t go standing on the bodies of children because you don’t like the Second Amendment, it’s disgusting,” Sen. Randy Robertson (R-Columbus) said.
The bill passed the chamber on party lines, sending it over to the House of Representatives for the next step in the process and echoing in some ways how a previous version of the bill proceeded through the legislature last year.
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A similar bill was pitched to members of the Georgia General Assembly in the 2024 legislative session, but the House did not take it up.
For 2025, Senate Bill 47 would create a nearly two-week period every year, through July 2030, to let Georgians buy guns, ammo, safes and related items without having to pay sales taxes on them.
It would function similarly to other sales tax holidays, such as those for the back-to-school season, where school supplies and other items are tax-free for a set amount of time.
According to the bill text, the holiday would begin on the second Friday of October for 11 days.
Bill sponsor Sen. Jason Anavitarte (R-Dallas) told Channel 2 Action News that the debate ended up too broad.
“I think this national debate of, you know, whether we should have, you know these gun laws restricting the Second Amendment have taken over something as simple as an 11-day sales tax holiday,” Anavitarte said.
On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Emmanuel Jones (D-Decatur) said, “Georgia is one of the worst in the nation as it pertains to gun deaths for children, intentionally and even unintentional deaths. That is a list none of us want to be on.”
Compared to the bill that passed in the Senate last year, it’s largely the same, except that the tax holiday was increased from five days to 11 for this year’s version.
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