Loeffler targets gun store patrons as part of voter registration efforts

Apr. 21—SMYRNA — As shoppers came and went through the sliding glass doors at the sprawling Adventure Outdoors gun store Wednesday, smiling volunteers asked them if they were registered to vote.

"The right to self-defense is in the far-left's crosshairs," flyers being passed out declared.

Chatting with gun enthusiasts was businesswoman and former U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Georgia. The Republican was there with her voter registration group Greater Georgia, which she founded last year after her loss to Democrat Raphael Warnock.

"Erasing our Second Amendment rights and stopping the sale of guns in this country is ultimately their end game," Loeffler said of Democrats. "But on the way they want to build databases and further infringe on our Second Amendment rights."

Wednesday's event was the latest "consumer registration drive" for Greater Georgia. Other events have been held at gas stations and grocery stores, where the group hammers Joe Biden's administration over inflation and high gas prices.

"You sort of figure that most people that are coming to a firearm store, such as Adventure Outdoors, probably are pretty concerned about elections and political issues to begin with," said former Congressman Bob Barr, who attended the event. "And chances are that they probably are registered to vote, but not necessarily. And it also helps to remind them that there's a primary coming up in about five weeks."

Greater Georgia, seen as a conservative counterpart to Stacey Abrams' Fair Fight group, is trying to reach unengaged voters. Loeffler says there are hundreds of thousands of unregistered conservative voters in Georgia.

A federal report from the Election Assistance Commission found that in 2020, 95% of Georgia's citizen voting-age population was registered to vote. About 387,000 of Georgia's 7.58 million citizens of voting age were unregistered, per the report.

Adventure Outdoors customer Pierre Perea, who chatted with Loeffler, said he was already registered to vote. Gas prices and inflation are the most motivating issues for him this cycle.

"When Trump was in there, people had hope, people had, you know, something to work for, they had a team to run for," Perea said.

Loeffler and David Perdue's losses to Democrats in the January 2021 Senate runoffs has been attributed in large part to Donald Trump's false claims of election fraud in Georgia, undermining confidence among Republican voters.

The former senator said that Senate Bill 202, the controversial elections overhaul passed by the state legislature last year, ought to remedy that.

"We're out educating people on how much it matters that this election law was passed, to create more safeguards, but more access in our state. So we have early voting, we're building trust through the absentee ballot process with voter ID, with drop boxes that are no longer unmanned ... and on and on," Loeffler said.

At Adventure Outdoors, Loeffler pointed out that ammunition has not been spared from inflation. And she criticized the White House's recently announced crackdown on "ghost guns" — homemade weapons with no serial numbers. She called Steven Dettelbach, Biden's recently announced nominee to lead the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, an "activist."

While she declined to endorse a candidate in the Republican gubernatorial primary, Greater Georgia distributed literature praising the passage of permitless carry, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law last week. The measure allows Georgians to carry a concealed handgun without a state permit.

Democrats have branded the law "criminal carry," saying it will exacerbate violent crime across the state. Loeffler and other Republicans, meanwhile, frame gun rights expansions as enabling citizens to protect themselves from crime.

Loeffler wouldn't say how much money her group plans to spend this year.

"We're nonpartisan, so the main focus on resources is to have the ground game, the get-out-the-vote, the voter mobilization effort in place. And so it's not so much about ads and raising money as it is raising awareness and empowering the voter," she said.

Barr thinks Republicans will do well in November. Biden's approval rating is at about 41%, according to RealClearPolitics. Historically, the opposition party performs well in the midterms — Barr himself was elected to Congress in 1994, the first midterm of Bill Clinton's tenure.

"People are so excited about the upcoming election," said Cassidy Rogers, a Kennesaw State University student who volunteers with Greater Georgia. "... We get a lot of questions about what we do, and we're really just here to answer that and get as many people as we can involved."