Earlier this week, Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed went back to the well of blaming gun laws for his city's violence.
In a statement issued on Monday, he cited Alabama's "lax" gun laws as a factor in a shootout Saturday night in the heart of Montgomery's downtown entertainment district that left two dead and 14 injured.
During an appearance on Mobile radio's FM Talk 106.5's "The Jeff Poor Show," State Rep. Shane Stringer (R-Citronelle), one of the architects of Alabama's 2022 constitutional carry law, disputed Reed's scapegoating.
"Yeah, I mean, that's total false claims," he said. "And it's really sad that once again, we have a Democrat mayor that has got problems in his city, and he's blaming it on the constitutional carry bill. That is totally false. You know, the same law applies to every other city in the state of Alabama, and there's only a handful of cities that are having problems — and they're, you know, unfortunately Democrat-led cities. So, it's totally false. I mean, we showed in Mobile, right after the constitutional carry bill was passed, crime actually dropped in Mobile. So, you know, that's not unusual and not uncommon for these kind of, you know, I guess kicking the can down the road or blame games going on in these types of situations. It would actually be refreshing for a mayor or a politician to just, you know, state the obvious and state the fact that we've got a problem and we need to address it, and meet it head on instead of trying to play the blame game."
The Mobile County Republican disputed that Montgomery's woes were a result of a gun problem. He suggested it was a "criminal" and "thug" problem that Reed's city has been unable to deal with properly.
"[E]very time there's any kind of shooting or incident like this, immediately the the law starts blaming the gun and it's a gun problem, when actually it's not, it's a criminal problem, it's a thug problem," Stringer added. "We need to address the thugs that are out here doing harm to our communities, hurting and killing people. We need to put them in prison and keep them there."
It was not the first time Reed had blamed the Alabama Legislature for his city's struggles. Last year, the Montgomery Mayor cited gun laws after Amy Dicks was struck by a bullet in a crossfire while stopped at a red light on the Atlanta Highway.
Dicks was paralyzed from the chest down as a result of the shooting.
Jeff Poor is the editor-in-chief of 1819 News and host of "The Jeff Poor Show," heard Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-noon on Mobile's FM Talk 106.5. To connect or comment, email [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @jeff_poor.
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