ATLANTA — Every school in Georgia could soon be required to have weapons detectors.
Parents of Apalachee High School students say weapons detectors are necessary to keep kids safe.
Those parents told Channel 2’s Richard Elliot on Monday that the mass shooting at Apalachee wouldn’t have happened had there been weapons detectors in schools.
Now, they want to see them at every single school in Georgia.
“This bill would help support, actually, a lot of different communities in the state of Georgia to make sure that they have some sort of metal detection device,” parent Layla Renee Contreras said.
Contreras went to the Georgia State Capitol on Monday with her sister, Sasha, a senior at Apalachee High School, so they could implore lawmakers to pass the bill requiring some kind of weapons detection devices in every school in Georgia.
Sasha was inside the school nearly two years ago when a student walked in with a weapon and opened fire, killing four people, including two students.
TRENDING STORIES:
- Historic Rome courthouse ‘fully engulfed;’ tower collapses
- Georgia high school students will no longer be able to use cellphones in class
- Waits up to 9 hours, lines out the door at Atlanta airport as ICE agents arrive to assist TSA
Contreras prays no other school community has to go through what they went through.
“You can see in the manner in which this alleged student brought that weapon into the building that can never happen again in our community and any community,” Contreras said.
Mulberry Republican Chuck Efstration is sponsoring the bill that would require those detection systems in every public school in Georgia, though what kind would be left up to the individual school district.
It wouldn’t be inexpensive, but there’s state funding put aside to help local districts implement it.
Apalachee High School is right in the middle of his district, so he said it’s important to him to get this done.
“We’ve made it clear that it is unacceptable for weapons to be in our schools, that parents deserve to know when they drop their kids off at school each day, they’re going to be able to pick them up safely at the end of the day,” Efstration said.
The bill has the full support of the House Speaker, which will give it an extra push through the Senate
©2026 Cox Media Group
