Billy Mitchell is a member of the Georgia House of Representatives for the Democratic Party, representing District 88. He assumed office on Jan. 13, 2003.
Mitchell’s professional experience includes working as the president of Billy Mitchell and Associates, senior director of community/government relations at South Fulton Medical Center, adjunct lecturer in political science at Clark Atlanta University, and lecturer at Kennesaw State University Burris Institute for Elected Officials.
Mitchell spoke with rolling out about gun reform, and what the House and the community can do to decrease violence.
What can we do as a community to push for gun reform?
We’ve got to get more voters and citizens engaged to understand how they have a direct impact on the policies that we can create. Most citizens believe that there should be some kind of common sense gun regulation, but we’ve got some leaders with the majority of the votes who are more beholden to the gun manufacturers in the gun lobby. The reality is if you have a gun in your home, the statistics suggest that you are more likely to injure or kill yourself or a loved one than you are an intruder.
What rules do you think should be in place for citizens to own guns?
No ordinary citizens should be allowed to carry certain weapons in public. I do believe that there should be some screening before you have gun ownership. There needs to be some background checks to make sure that you can be a responsible gun owner. I do believe that there should be some training that goes with it as far as how to properly use your gun. In most of the homes that we have around this nation with sheetrock, if you shoot a high-powered weapon, it will go through the bedrooms of your loved ones. We need some kind of training, some kind of screening there. I do believe that there are some weapons like automatic AR-15-type weapons, that the average citizen should not be able to own because they serve no purpose other than for mass destruction. They were designed for war, no one goes hunting with those kinds of weapons.
With the recent rise in mass shootings, what is being discussed in the House meeting to improve the situation?
We’re trying to get our point of view across that there needs to be some sensible common sense gun legislation that is put in place. This country is the only country where these kinds of issues happen simply because other countries don’t have the freedom to buy high-powered weapons that we do and the consequences for doing that are severe. Those are the kinds of things that we have to put forth.
