Decatur Lawmaker Says She'll Revive Assault-Weapons Ban Bill

DECATUR, GA -- A Decatur lawmaker says that, in the wake of the Orlando shooting, she plans to revive her effort to ban assault rifles in Georgia.

Rep. Mary Margaret Oliver is a Democrat in Georgia's Republican-controlled General Assembly and would no doubt face an uphill battle pushing any legislation viewed as anti-gun.

But she says it's time to at least look at the proposal.

“It is time for a discussion – at a minimum, at least a discussion,” Oliver told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I always want to remind Georgians that we were spared a massacre with an assault weapon at McNair Academy by Antoinette Tuff. We were lucky, lives were saved here. Orlando citizens tragically were not so fortunate.”

She was referring to a school shooting incident that was averted when Tuff, a McNair employee, talked the gunman who was holding her captive into giving her his assault rifle.

Oliver's legislation would ban the type of assault rifle Omar Mateen used Sunday to attack a crowd at an Orlando gay nightclub, killing 50 people and wounding another 53.

It would restrict assault rifles, large-capacity magazines and armor-piercing bullets in Georgia.

She pushed a similar bill in this year's legislative session, but it went nowhere in the GOP-controlled body.

She said she hopes to find a Republican co-sponsor for the legislation, which would need to clear a Republican-led House and Republican-led Senate before being signed into law by a Republican governor.

Gun-rights advocates argue that expanding the number of places where legal firearm owners may carry their weapons is the best way to curb mass shootings like the one in Orlando. They argue that criminals will, by their nature, find ways around gun laws.