A focus group comprised of eleven people isn’t a big sample size, but if nothing else it at least offers a glimpse of what a handful of Georgia residents are looking for from lawmakers in response to the shootings at Apalachee High School. 

As Axios reports, the folks Engagious and Sago spoke to on Wednesday night were largely united on at least a couple of things, but an “assault weapons” ban wasn’t one of them.

 Axios sat in on two Engagious/Sago online focus groups Wednesday night with 11 Georgians who voted for Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020. Eight are independents and three are Democrats.

• All said they support proposals to aggressively prosecute and penalize parents who provide guns to children or who fail to safely store their weapons. 

• Yes, and: 10 focus group members also supported increasing access to mental health services.  

• Yes, but: The group was split on whether to enact a federal ban on assault weapons like the AR-15.

Interestingly, one focus group was almost entirely supportive of a ban on so-called assault weapons, while the other group was almost entirely opposed, which makes me wonder if there were some peer pressure dymanics at work for one or both groups. 

The shooter’s father is already facing second-degree murder charges, so I’d say the status quo already allows for aggressively prosecuting parents who allow their children access to a firearm used in a violent crime. It didn’t come up in the focus group, but one of things I’d like to see Georgia lawmakers work on is a grant program for gun stores and FFLs who will temporarily store firearms for those who need to get them out of the home for a couple of weeks (or even a couple of months). Organizations like Hold My Guns can play an invaluable role in helping parents when they’re concerned about their kid’s mental health by giving them an option to keep their firearms secure off-premises until the crisis has passed. 

Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns has already said that increased mental health access for adolescents will be a part of the legislative package Republicans introduce in response to the shooting, but Democrats are (naturally) demanding things like a “red flag” law and “universal” background checks, which wouldn’t have played a role in how the shooter acquired the rifle he used in the attack. 

While several of the Democrats who represent Georgia in Congress have called for a semi-auto ban in response to the shooting, Democrats in the state legislature have been more vocal about storage mandates, background check laws, and crafting a system for Extreme Risk Protection Orders. Based on the results of these focus groups, that’s not what those Georgians are looking for. There’s broad agreement to deal with the individuals responsible for these horrific acts and to prevent them by offering more mental health services to troubled teens, but using the shootings at Apalachee High School to go after lawful gun owners or the Second Amendment isn’t nearly as popular, even in the emotionally-charged immediate aftermath of the murders of two students and two staffers.