Every year, Democrats in the Alabama Legislature propose bills they say will help reduce gun violence, and 2025 will be no exception, with four already in the pipeline and a fifth being pushed by a sheriff.

The bills will likely rekindle the debates that resurface after every school shooting, like the one at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Ga., where four people died and nine others were injured.

A 14-year-old student is charged with murder. His father is charged with second-degree murder for giving him the weapon — a semi-automatic, AR-15 style rifle — as a Christmas gift.

See also: Montgomery requires photo IDs for carrying concealed guns on person or in vehicles

“This young man, little boy in Georgia, was equipped by his father,” said Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham. “He equipped this young man to go out and be a killer.”

Givan has pre-filed a bill, HB13, that would make it a felony to sell or give an assault-style weapon to a person under 18. It would also be a felony for a person under 18 to possess an assault-style weapon.

Other bills pre-filed for next year would ban devices that help semi-automatic firearms fire more like automatic guns – bump stocks and Glock switches.

The proposals face an uphill battle in the State House when the session starts in February. Republicans hold three-fourths of the seats and generally oppose gun control bills.

Givan said it’s frustrating that opponents will always use the argument that the intent of the bills is to deny citizens their Second Amendment rights.

But Givan said it is important to honor a commitment she said Democratic lawmakers made after the Parkland, Fla. high school massacre in 2018 to push such legislation.

“What is it going to take? Is it going to take your child getting killed? Will it take that representative’s grandchild or daughter or sister or someone getting killed?” Givan said.

“No one is trying to take away anyone’s Second Amendment right,” Givan said. “We must come up with something with regards to gun control and getting these guns out of the hands of children. It’s simple. This is not rocket science.”

Here is a look at that and four other proposed bills to address gun violence in Alabama.

• Givan’s bill carries a definition of “assault weapon” that covers many semi-automatic rifles and handguns.

Givan pre-filed her bill in July and said the Georgia shooting is just the latest example of parental complicity in a school shooting tragedy.

“What are they telling the child, embedding in the mind of the child when they give the child a gun as a gift? So that needs to be the question,” Givan said.

• HB23 by Rep. Kenyatte Hassell, D-Montgomery, would require a person to have a permit to carry an assault-style weapon on their person or in their vehicle.
• Rep. Barbara Drummond, D-Mobile, said she is working with Republican lawmakers for a bill intended to help keep guns off schools campuses.

Drummond’s bill says that if a parent fails to reasonably secure a gun at home and their child takes it to school, the parent can be charged with a crime.

Earlier this year, Michigan parents Jennifer and James Crumbley became the first convicted in a U.S. mass school shooting, the Associated Press reported, for not securing a firearm at home and acting indifferently to signs of their son’s deteriorating mental health before he killed four students in 2021.

The bill defines reasonably secure as being in a locked box or gun safe, although the definition is not limited to those storage methods. A gun with a trigger lock attached would be considered reasonably secured.

“It is simply a responsibility bill to say secure your firearms so that children will not take then onto our school campuses, K through 12,” Drummond said. “Given the atmosphere of what we’re seeing now and all of the school shootings, it’s not if it will happen in Alabama, but when it will happen,” Drummond said.

Drummond is bringing the bill back for a third time after failed efforts in the 2023 and 2024 sessions. She said she is talking to her Republican colleagues about what it would take to pass the bill.

“I’m not taking anybody’s weapon away. I’m not telling them how to use it or when to use it. I’m only simply saying secure it for the welfare of our children,” Drummond said.

Drummond’s bill originally would have made it a felony if a parent failed to secure a gun and their child took it to school. The bill was changed to reduce the penalty to a misdemeanor.

Drummond noted the shooting at LeFlore High School in Mobile in January, when a 16-year-old girl brought a handgun to school and shot a 15-year-old boy during an altercation. The bullet caused a superficial wound but also struck a 17-year-old in the chest. Authorities said it could have been much worse.

Drummond said she was alarmed during a visit to a school in her district to learn about guns being found on campus.

“I asked the police, when you find a gun, what happens? They call the parent and the parent comes and picks it up. They should not be on school campuses. Period,” Drummond said.

• Rep. Phillip Ensler, D-Montgomery, has pre-filed HB26, which makes it a crime to have a handgun equipped with a device to make it fire multiple rounds with a single pull of the trigger, like an automatic weapon. The devices, sometimes called Glock switches, are illegal under federal law. Ensler filed the same bill this year. Law enforcement officials supported it, saying a state law was needed in addition to the federal law. The House passed Ensler’s bill but it did not come up for a vote in the Senate. The Mississippi Legislature passed a law banning Glock switches earlier this year.
• Although no bill has been pre-filed, Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch has said he is gathering information to see if there can be an effort to change the permitless carry law to require youths under age 21 to purchase a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

After a violent weekend in which Bessemer police investigated a triple homicide and seven others were shot, Police Chief Michael Wood said law enforcement is hindered by permitless carry.

“You need a background check,” Wood said.

With a permit law, Wood said, “if they’re on their way to a shooting and the police stop them and they don’t have a permit for that gun, guess what? We can take them to jail. It’s a misdemeanor, correct, but it just stopped a felony or a robbery or something else.”