Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-08-01
THk ATLANTA TRI-wEEKLY JOURNAL

by thousands of informed and thinking citi-
zens. 1t recently passed the Senate by vote
of forty-seven to one, and was Endorsed last
week by tho House Committee on Constitu-
tional Amendments unanimously. No dub
ious measure could enlist such approval, no
needless measure win support so united and
so earnest.
This Statewide sanction of the Golucke
bill is to be ascribed to the fact that in deal
ing with an imperative problem it proposes to
do the right thing in the right way. It pro-
poses to control the bearing of firearms, not
to the extent Of prohibiting them altogether,
but by making the right to do so statutory
instead of Constitutional so that the Legis-
lature can prescribe certain reasonable re-
quirements which will do much more than
now can be done to keep such weapons out
of the hands that threaten public safety and
heap up the records of crime. That
clause of our State Constitution which pro-
vides that 1.-The right of the people to keep
and bear arms shall not be infringed" is a
legacy from long-gone age Of England when
arms were of kind that could not be car
ried concealed and when the pistol Of today
was not so much as imagined. Time was in
Georgia when the law required citizens to
carry arms while attending church. But
after the danger of sudden attack by savage
edskins ceased the statute naturally fell
into disuse and finally was stricken out. 1t
is not now proposed to abrldge a real rlght
but simply to interpret it in terms Of the life
and needs of today. Times and places there
are, especially in remote country districts,
where personal and family safety may require
the bearing of arms; with no such needs and
privileges will the Golucke bill interfere. But
it will interfere, by legal and proper methods,
with the irresponsible pistol "toter," with the
slumbred "gunman," with the incipient crimi-
nal who goes armed for no rightful need or
lawful purpose, and with the actual criminal
whose menace is ever present. 1t will pro-
vide that while the right of the people to
keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, at
the anne time the General Assembly shall be
empowered to say that pistols, revolvers, der
ringers and similar sidearms shall be had or
borne as prescribed by law. And with this
general authority granted, there will be no
difficulty in prescribing character qualifica-
tions that will go far toward keeping arms
from those in whose hands they are certain to
be peril to society and to government.
Surely, there is no need Of arguing to Ceor-
gians to the manner born the need Of this
measure Tor the protection Of rural districts
and for the more effective control of crime in
cities. Touching the latter, it is proper to
point out that Of all the American cities for
which homicide statistics have been COM
piled, both the highest second and the high
est third are in Georgia, and that for this
grievous conditions of affairs the pistol "toter'
is largely responsible: The Legislature and
the courts alike have gone as far as they well
can go to combat the evil under existing Con-
stitutional provisions. Hence the necessity of
the proposed amendment. The Golucke bill to
this end is wisely conceived, prudently dr"wn
and most convincingly indorsed. May it
promptly receive in the House, it already
has in the Senate, the two-thirds majority re-
quired for it's passage.