Mission and Purpose

GeorgiaCarryLaws.net was created with the goal of creating a better understanding of the legal exercise of Second Amendment rights in Georgia. It is not an organization. Rather, it is an educational and training resource for citizens and peace officers alike.

It is my contention that the state of Georgia has utterly failed in training its peace officers in how to properly interact with the legally armed citizen. All too often, such encounters result in the mistreatment of the citizen and the violation of state and federal law and legal procedure on the part of the peace officer. It is important to note that this is not typically due to evil intentions on the part of the peace officer. Rather, it is due to a lack of training that is rooted in law and Constitutional principles. The academy training that new peace officers receive is routed in survival. While survival is unquestionably important, little if any attention is paid to the fact that citizens can legally possess and carry firearms and other self protection tools in Georgia. The state requires a mere 20 hours or advanced training per year. Sadly, that mere 20 hours is all that some peace officers get either due to their own choices or the policies and practices set forth by their agency.

The law is constantly evolving through legislative changes and court rulings. What may have been blessed by the courts in 2006 has been ruled a no go in the present. A peace officer that graduated from the academy a number of years ago and that does not receive up to date training on this issue for whatever reason quite simply may acting on a knowledge or understanding of the law that is out of date. A more frightening scenario is agency policies and training that are based on out of date law thus actually mandating illegal activity on the part of their personnel.

I write the above not to espouse some great conspiracy or evil intent on the part of individual peace officers and agencies. On the contrary, I submit that the issue gets lost in a shuffle of logistics, funding, societal misconception and pressure, and priorities that are placed elsewhere. It is also the result of laws that are not easily understood and filled with vague terms included such as “public gathering” without what a clear definition of just what a public gathering is. Such ambiguities lead to shaky decisions on the part of both the citizen and the peace officer. Legislative action to clearly delineate Georgia carry laws would certainly lead to a better understanding of the laws. Punitive legislation may deal with individual failings on the part of officers and agencies, but without training, neither of the above approaches will accomplish any far reaching improvement in the current state of affairs. Those that seek only to improve the situation through litigation and legislation only promote an “us versus them” mindset that is often attributed to peace officers. As I stated above, I do believe that there do need to be legislative changes, but those changes should also contain training mandates so that the word is spread. Unfortunately, litigation will sometimes be a necessary result of the human equation, but through training we can reduce the number of incidents that would result in such action.

For over 10 years I have been a peace officer serving in multifaceted functions from rookie patrol officer to command staff, and I have been sworn at the local, state, and federal levels. While this is a personal venture, I realize that I can not fully separate this venture from who I am professionally and all that entails, but I believe that it is necessary. I hope you come back often to this blog and other sites that will be interrelated with it.

Thank you,

J. Lee Weems
Editor, GeorgiaCarryLaws.net
Addressing Georgia’s carry laws through education and training