Range Master Les Stover helps Wanda Scates with her aim during a gun permit carry class Saturday at Sportsman’s Indoor Shooting.If it were up to Jason Spencer, law-abiding Georgia residents would be able to carry a handgun concealed beneath their clothes or worn openly on the hip — without a permit.
Fellow lawmakers didn’t pass the “Georgia Constitutional Carry Act of 2012” spearheaded by Spencer, a Republican state representative from coastal Camden County on the Florida border.
Still, it has gotten easier in recent years for Georgia residents to carry a concealed firearm. And there’s been a corresponding spike in permits issued by probate courts near Chattanooga and elsewhere in the state.
“I thought everybody in Walker County had one of those by now,” joked Walker County Probate Judge Christy Anderson during a recent candidate’s forum. Anderson is running for re-election to her post.
Her office has issued 7,455 concealed-carry permits since 2001. Considering that Walker County has an estimated population of 69,000, that means up to 11 percent of its residents have a permit to carry — nearly three times the state average. That estimate could be high because some of those 7,455 permits are renewals required every five years.