By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
Thursday, state Rep. Mary Moore, D-Birmingham, came to the floor of the Alabama House of Representatives to announce that she was introducing a resolution in support of the youth movement for mental health and gun control and that she is introducing legislation to ban all semi-automatic firearms.
Rep. Moore said that she has introduced her legislation today. HB472 bans the sale of assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Moore said that too many Americans love weapons and that there is no reason for anyone to own weapons of war like AR-15 and AK style weapons. Moore said that there would be no gun seizures.
Everyone who owns a semiautomatic gun could apply for papers grandfathering in their existing semiautomatic weapons. Nobody will lose their guns. You just would not be able to buy any new semiautomatic firearms.
The Alabama Political Reporter asked Moore if that applied to all semiautomatic firearms: rifles, shotguns, and handguns. She said yes.
“Semiautomatic weapons are weapons of war and nobody needs them,” Moore said. “If you used one hunting you would shoot up all of the meat into a mess.”
APR asked if we could keep purchasing bolt action, pump action, lever action weapons and she said yes.
APR asked what would stop someone in Alabama from just driving to Georgia and buying all their semiautomatic weapons there.
“Absolutely nothing, but I would hope that Georgia and the other states would follow Alabama’s example and pass their own legislation,” Moore said.
Moore said that she supports gun control. “It’s time that we had that conversation in the state of Alabama as well as across the country.”
Moore said that she has been assured by the Speaker of House that the legislature will be allowed to have this conversation and that gun control bills will not just be ignored and never taken up in committee.
Moore said that, “It appears as though it’s all right for our children to be killed. And nothing is done about it.”
Moore added that she does not fear the NRA and does not love weapons like many Americans do.
The February 14 shooting deaths of 17 students and staff by a 19-year-old former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida has sparked a conversation on how best to protect students at public schools.
Moore wants to ban the sale of semiautomatic firearms in the state. State Representative Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, has introduced legislation making is criminal for anyone under the age of 21 to own, purchase, or even possess assault weapons as defined by her legislation.
State Rep. Will Ainsworth, R-Guntersville, has introduced legislation to train and certify teachers to carry firearms in the classroom, HB435.
State Reps. Johnny Mack Morrow, D-Red Bay, and Alan Farley, R-McCalla, have proposed allowing local school boards to decide whether they want to arm and train certain teachers and security volunteers to carry firearms on a system by system basis.
The lack of consensus and the lateness in the session means it is very unlikely that the Legislature will have the time or the inclination to act on any of these proposals.
“I know people want to hide behind the Second Amendment, but those weapons were used for war,” Moore said.
Moore said that the AR-15 was designed by the military to kill the Vietcong in the Vietnam Conflict and has no purpose being used by civilians.
