亚特兰大-随着共和党人在全国范围内准备在今年秋天以严厉打击犯罪的平台攻击民主党人，佐治亚州民主党人斯泰西·艾布拉姆斯正在使枪支成为她竞选州长的中心焦点，寻求将犯罪变成现任共和党州长布莱恩·坎普连任竞选的负担。

艾布拉姆斯将收紧佐治亚州的枪支法律作为她周四发布的公共安全计划的重要组成部分，提议推翻佐治亚州共和党人自2014年以来颁布的多项法律，这些法律放松了对谁可以携带枪支以及在哪里携带枪支的限制。

民主党人还试图利用政府应该如何打击犯罪的分歧，认为坎普和共和党人已经回到了失败的锁定方法，放弃了以前两党推动的侧重于惩罚较轻的方法。

肯普最亲密的盟友之一、共和党司法部长克里斯·卡尔(Chris Carr)表示，共和党放弃改革努力的说法是“绝对错误的”，他说，共和党今年通过了一项精神健康法案，支持转移非暴力罪犯，并希望在吸毒成瘾方面做更多工作。

但他表示，民主党人拒绝Kemp战略是错误的，该战略专注于打击帮派，向警察发放奖金，并建立一个专门的国家单位，专注于城市地区的犯罪和街头赛车。

卡尔说，民主党人“从根本上说，对保护暴力罪犯比对保护弱势群体更感兴趣。”

加强枪支限制是一个引起民主党选民共鸣的问题，可能会动摇郊区的白人女性和其他摇摆选民，因为美国仍处于纽约北部超市和德克萨斯州学校大规模枪击事件的震惊之中。这些和其他枪击事件给似乎陷入僵局的全国枪支辩论增添了新的紧迫性，一些国会共和党人表示愿意至少做出小的妥协。

正如佐治亚州民主党众议员谢伊·罗伯茨(Shea Roberts)所说，民主党人押注选民正“处于转折点”，反对共和党扩大枪支准入的决定。

2014年，佐治亚州立法者颁布法令，人们可以携带枪支进入更多地方，包括酒吧、教堂，甚至机场的安检口。2017年，他们在名单中增加了大学校园。今年，肯普推动通过了一项法律，废除了人们在公共场合携带隐蔽武器必须持有许可证的要求。这兑现了肯普在2018年竞选州长时做出的承诺，当时他打出了挑衅性的广告，其中一个广告中，他用枪指着一名演员，这名演员向肯普的一个女儿求婚。

2020年，罗伯茨在富裕的亚特兰大地区罢免了一名共和党议员，称她在女儿描述了2018年佛罗里达州帕克兰学校大屠杀前两周在学校进行的一次积极的射击训练后，她有动力参选。

“从那以后，事情变得越来越糟，”罗伯茨说。

艾布拉姆斯希望对私人枪支销售进行普遍的背景调查，红旗立法允许从那些对自己和他人构成危险的人手中收回枪支，并阻止根据保护令被没收枪支的人购买新枪。

佐治亚大学政治学家查尔斯·布洛克说，民意调查显示，即使是许多倾向于共和党的选民也认为坎普和共和党州议员在使无许可证携带隐蔽枪支合法化方面走得太远了。

“即使在共和党选民中，这也不是一个非常受欢迎的想法，”布洛克说。“可以说，立法机构只听取了最强硬的铁杆共和党人的意见，而不是普通共和党人对其中一些问题的看法。”

但是，即使艾布拉姆斯获胜，她也很可能在佐治亚州的立法机构中面临抵制她的提议的共和党多数派。这些多数派得到反对任何妥协的直言不讳的团体的支持。

 

“不管怎样，真正相信自己权利的人也会相信自己的权利，”佐治亚州枪支权利组织GA2A的执行董事杰里·亨利说。

亨利说，他怀疑共和党人是否愿意收紧佐治亚州的法律。亨利说，只有艾布拉姆斯“把一大群民主党人拉进大会”，这些提议才是可行的。"我甚至不确定所有的民主党人都会支持她."

卡尔说，艾布拉姆斯和他的司法部长对手民主党人简·乔丹误解了格鲁吉亚人对枪支和保护自己免受犯罪侵害的看法。

“他们不知道格鲁吉亚人在哪里，”卡尔说。"安全可靠是人类的基本需求."

艾布拉姆斯希望重建一个刑事司法改革委员会，该委员会在共和党人内森·迪尔担任州长时发起了多项改革。艾布拉姆斯运动的政策主管萨拉·托顿奇(Sara Totonchi)表示，艾布拉姆斯将指导该组织“认真研究暴力犯罪，为什么会发生暴力犯罪，以及我们可以做些什么来从源头上解决这个问题。”

艾布拉姆斯建议对学校和家庭进行干预，以防止暴力，并扩大就业培训和机会。她想将一些低级的交通和毒品犯罪转化为民事犯罪。她希望有一部“清白”的法律，如果某人在一段时间内没有再犯，就会自动清除犯罪记录。

共和党全国委员会发言人加里森·道格拉斯(Garrison Douglas)嘲笑这一清白的提议是“重罪”,称这进一步证明了艾布拉姆斯对犯罪的手软。共和党人已经攻击艾布拉姆斯是西雅图玛格丽特凯西基金会的董事会成员，称该组织支持取消或废除警察。

反过来，坎普也受到民主党的攻击，因为他从丹尼尔防务公司(Daniel Defense)那里接受了5万美元的竞选捐款，这家总部位于佐治亚州的公司制造了德克萨斯州乌瓦尔迪学校袭击事件中使用的步枪。

艾布拉姆斯的犯罪计划是一系列积极举措中的第三个，旨在扭转坎普倡导的问题。在肯普将临时汽油税假期延长至7月后，艾布拉姆斯呼吁肯普将假期延长至今年剩余时间。肯普为教师加薪5000美元，这是一个标志性的举措;作为回应，艾布拉姆斯呼吁给教师额外平均加薪11000美元。

布洛克说，问题是枪支和其他社会问题是否会在竞选中激励选民，共和党可能会专注于经济，肯普因经济发展项目而受到好评，而共和党则在通货膨胀问题上抨击民主党。

布洛克说，因为坎普现在是他与艾布拉姆斯的选举重赛的现任者，“她这次的任务可以说比四年前更具挑战性。”“因此，她必须努力化解一些问题，这些问题可能会影响州长将要推动的经济信息。”

Abrams tries to flip script on guns and crime in Georgia

ATLANTA --As Republicans nationwide gear up to attack Democrats with tough-on-crime platforms this fall, Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams is making guns a central focus of her race for governor, seeking to turn crime into a liability for incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp's reelection bid.

Abrams made tightening Georgia's gun laws a big part of a public safety plan she released Thursday, proposing to reverse multiple laws that Georgia Republicans have enacted since 2014 loosening restrictions on who can carry a gun and where.

The Democrat is also trying to exploit divides on how government should fight crime, arguing Kemp and Republicans have reverted to a failed lock-'em-up approach, abandoning a previous bipartisan push to focus on less punitive approaches.

Republican Attorney General Chris Carr, one of Kemp's closest allies, said it is “absolutely false” that Republicans have abandoned reform efforts, saying the GOP pushed through a mental health bill this year, supports diverting nonviolent offenders and wants to do more on drug addiction.

But he said Democrats are wrong to reject a Kemp strategy that has focused on cracking down on gangs, giving bonuses to police officers and creating a special state unit that focuses on crime and street racing in urban areas.

Carr said Democrats “fundamentally are more interested in protecting violent criminals than they are vulnerable communities.”

Strengthening gun restrictions is an issue that resonates with Democratic voters and could sway suburban white women and other swing voters at a time when the country is still in shock from mass shootings at an upstate New York supermarket and Texas school. Those and other shootings have added fresh urgency to a seemingly stalemated national debate over guns, with some congressional Republicans signaling a willingness for at least small compromises.

Democrats are betting that voters are “at a breaking point," as Georgia Democratic state Rep. Shea Roberts puts it, over Republicans' decisions to expand access to guns.

In 2014, Georgia lawmakers decreed people could carry guns into additional places, including bars, churches and even up to the security checkpoint at the airport. In 2017, they added college campuses to the list. And Kemp this year pushed through a law that abolished the requirement for people to have permits to carry concealed weapons in public. That fulfilled a pledge Kemp had made when he ran for governor in 2018 with provocative ads, including one where he pointed a gun at an actor playing a suitor to one of Kemp's daughters.

Roberts unseated a Republican lawmaker in an affluent Atlanta district in 2020, saying she was motivated to run after her daughter described an active shooter drill at school two weeks before the 2018 school massacre in Parkland, Florida.

“Things have only gotten worse since then,” Roberts said.

Abrams wants universal background checks for private gun sales, red flag legislation to let guns be taken away from those who pose a danger to themselves and others, and to block someone who has had a gun removed under a protective order from buying another one.

Polling showed even many Republican-leaning voters felt Kemp and GOP state lawmakers went too far in making it legal to carry concealed guns without a permit, said University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock.

“It was not a tremendously popular idea even among Republican voters,” Bullock said. “Arguably the legislature was listening only to the hardest of hardcore Republicans, and not where the average Republicans were on some of those issues.”

But even if Abrams wins, she’s likely to face Republican majorities resistant to her proposals in Georgia’s legislature. Those majorities are backed by vocal groups opposed to any compromise.

“The people who really believe in their rights are going to believe in their rights, regardless,” said Jerry Henry, executive director of the Georgia gun rights group GA2A.

Henry said he doubts Republicans would be willing to tighten Georgia's laws. Such proposals would be viable only if Abrams "drags a whole bunch of Democrats into the General Assembly with her,” Henry said. “And I’m not even sure all the Democrats will go along with her.”

Carr says Abrams and his opponent for attorney general, Democrat Jen Jordan, have misread how Georgians feel about guns and protecting themselves from crime.

“They are out of touch with where Georgians are," Carr said. "It is a fundamental human need to be safe and secure.”

Abrams wants to reconstitute a criminal justice reform council that authored multiple reforms when Republican Nathan Deal was governor. Sara Totonchi, policy director for the Abrams campaign, said Abrams would direct the group to “take a hard look at violent crime, why it happens and what we can do to address it at the source.”

Abrams proposes intervening in schools and with families to prevent violence and expanding job training and opportunities. She wants to convert some low-level traffic and drug crimes into civil offenses. And she wants a “clean slate” law that would automatically clear criminal records if someone doesn't reoffend in a set period of time.

Republican National Committee spokesperson Garrison Douglas derided the clean slate proposal as “felony-b-gone," saying it was further proof that Abrams is soft on crime. Republicans have already been attacking Abrams for being a board member of the Seattle-based Marguerite Casey Foundation, saying the group is in favor of defunding or abolishing the police.

Kemp, in turn, is under Democratic attack for taking $50,000 in campaign contributions from Daniel Defense, the Georgia-based company that made the rifle used in the Uvalde, Texas, school attack.

Abrams' crime plan is the third in a series of aggressive moves aimed at turning the tables on issues Kemp has championed. After Kemp extended a temporary gas tax holiday into July, Abrams called on Kemp to extend it for the rest of the year. Kemp delivered on a signature $5,000 pay raise for teachers; Abrams responded by calling for an additional $11,000 average raise for teachers.

The question, Bullock said, is whether guns and other social issues will motivate voters in a campaign where Republicans will likely focus on the economy, with Kemp taking credit for economic development projects while the GOP hammers Democrats over inflation.

Because Kemp is now an incumbent in his electoral rematch with Abrams, “she arguably has a more challenging task this time than she did four years ago,” Bullock said. “So she’s got to try to neutralize with issues that might overcome the economic message the governor’s going to be pushing.”