Among the bills in the Georgia legislature that failed to pass this year was HB 1023, a bill that would have required government schools to install metal detectors to prevent future school shootings.

At Apalachee High School, the scene of that tragic 2024 school shooting that claimed the lives of four people, they did not have a metal detector and so a student was able to smuggle a rifle into the school. In the aftermath of this tragedy, you would think that public officials would have been demanding that all government schools install metal detectors. But the response from Republican legislators was not the common sense solution many of us would expect.

Oddly, Republican Speaker of the House Jon Burns did not focus on metal detectors which might have prevented the shooting.  Instead, Republican Speaker of the House Jon Burns offered up HB 268 (FY 2025) as his signature piece of Republican legislation. This bill was highly problematic yet passed the Georgia legislature and was signed by Governor Kemp in April 2025.

The purpose of HB 268 seemed to be: Make every school official, teacher and child into an expert in assessing the potential threat posed by the psychological status of children attending their school.

What HB 268 actually does:

HB 268 Created a Massive Bureaucracy

The legislation proposed by Burns did little for school safety and added to an incredibly bloated bureaucracy. It involves to some degree 28 agencies, departments or positions. It creates a number of new positions such as “Qualified Mental Health Coordinator” for every school system, a state-wide network of regional educational service agencies (RESA), a bunch of RESA Student Affairs officers, and an Office of Safe Schools — and more.  

The GAGOP Platform states:     
“We believe that revenues collected at all levels of government should be used only for well-defined, legitimate government functions and should be carried out efficiently so that tax rates may be kept as low as possible.”

Is the Speaker trying to build a “deep state” bureaucracy within the state government akin to what we have in the federal government?

Not to mention that if the state is given more control over determining what is “sound mental health” in schools, that can be turned against families to enforce a woke worldview, contrary to the beliefs of the parents.

HB 268 also created a myriad of training requirements for teachers, students and others, yearly audits, and all sorts of reports. Would all these new government employees engaged in additional reporting have prevented a tragic attack on our children?

Why would our Republican legislators think hiring a “Mental Health Coordinator” is going to make a gun-free zone more safe for children? When President Trump visits Georgia, we recognize that he deserves armed security. Don’t our children deserve that protection too?

HB 268 Created a hostile environment for all students with an “anonymous reporting system.”

This system was to be developed and operated by the Board of Education – or more likely contracted out.  This system is to operate 24X7, have mobile telephone support, a multi-lingual crisis center, provide notice to school based teams and advertise the availability of this system to the public. 

And, of course, no bureaucratic system is complete without a database. HB 268 created a state-wide database tracking students with information from 12 agencies and every school system.  Governor Kemp has already designated $3M in start up funds for this database.

HB 268 Placed an Impossible Burden on Teachers

Between a myriad of training requirements for teachers, students and others, yearly audits, and all sorts of reports the premise of the bill seems to be that teachers can prevent school shootings by doing what few, if any, professional psychiatrists could do – find the perp before he/she perpetrates anything.  

Teachers, the people who know their students the best, are being given procedures, policies, and training from bureaucrats who do not know their schools or their students.  It’s a top down system.

Perhaps the most infuriating assumption of the bill is that the bureaucrat knows best.

School shootings are rare but unimaginably tragic. Everyone wants to see them prevented. Children are precious and we all have a stake in keeping them safe.

The question is: Will school children finally be safe under this new complicated top-down bureaucracy? At a time when Americans have seen that bureaucracies tend toward bloat, waste of tax dollars, ineffectiveness, and corruption, why would Georgia Republican legislators create another one?

Would these different agencies, new government school employees, and a state-wide database have prevented the tragic Apalachee shooting?

Or would children be safer with metal detectors?

House Bill 268 is another example of the disconnect that exists between the legislators in Atlanta and the Republican voters, who are passionate about the principles of the Republican Party.

We encourage you to talk to your legislators about HB 1023 the metal detector bill, and other solutions to protect children while repealing the big government beaurocracy that serves no one but the deep state.

Not all Republicans vote Republican values. Make sure you know your representative’s voting scorecard.