Abrams blames Kemp for music festival's cancelation

AP Photo/Steve Helber, File

Gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is desperately trying to recapture the magic that almost catapulted her to the governor’s mansion four years ago. However, that really doesn’t seem to be happening.

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Gaffes certainly haven’t helped, such as supporting mask mandates while being photographed with school kids while not wearing a mask, for example.

Yet her latest effort might as well be categorized as a gaffe. You see, a music festival slated for Piedmont Park in Atlanta was canceled. Sources claim it was because of a Georgia law that barred the festival from banning guns in the park.

Abrams has decided to blame Kemp for that festival.

Gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams took aim at her opponent Brian Kemp hours after Music Midtown organizers announced the cancelation of the annual festival.

In a statement posted on social media, Abrams wrote that Georgia would lose $50 million following the cancellation of Music Midtown.

“The cancellation of Music Midtown will cost Georgia’s economy $50 million,” Abrams wrote. “It’s shameful, but not surprising, that the governor cares more about protecting dangerous people carrying guns in public than saving jobs and keeping business in Georgia.”

Abrams continued, “Brian Kemp’s dangerous and extreme gun agenda endangers the lives of Georgians, and the cancellation of Music Midtown is proof that his reckless policies endanger Georgia’s economy as well…Rather than respond to increased gun violence by strengthening safety, he doubled-down on weakening gun laws.”

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Except, well, Gov. Brian Kemp had literally nothing to do with any of the laws being blamed for the festival’s cancelation.

While Kemp did sign constitutional carry into law earlier this year, the law in question wasn’t that one.

The cancelation was reportedly because of two factors. One was the Safe Carry Protection Act, which drastically overhauled the regulations of the prohibited places in the state of Georgia. That particular law was passed back in 2014 and had the support of Gov. Nathan Deal and his Democratic challenger, Jason Carter.

Then, a state supreme court decision in 2019 found that a short-term lease didn’t give people like the festival organizers the authority to ban firearms in the park.

Here’s the thing, though. Do you know what Kemp was doing in 2014 when this bill passed? He was secretary of state, a job that doesn’t have any hand in legislation.

Further, he has no hand in the state supreme court, either. Those justices are elected by the people and have been since right after the Civil War.

So, in other words, Abrams is blaming Kemp for something he was literally powerless to stop.

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Now, I’m not saying he would have. As a Georgian, I feel as if our rights matter far more than a music festival. Especially since organizers had at least two years and some change to find a different venue or to make adjustments and failed to do so.

But I will say that it’s beyond ridiculous for Abrams to try and make political hay out of this particular issue when, to be frank, we have much bigger problems in this state.

Then again, Abrams may well be grasping at whatever straws she can find.

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