The 2025 Alabama legislative session is underway. On the top of the agenda for the Alabama Senate: selecting a new leader. The senators elected Sen. Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, as president pro tem, reports AL.com. The vote was 33-0.
As the session continues, Gov. Kay Ivey and many lawmakers are supporting a ban on Glock switches and other conversion devices that make semi-automatic weapons fire like a machine gun.
The Republican governor is expected to back the proposal in her State of the State address as part of a broader package of bills focused on public safety.
The devices are banned under federal law and in 23 states. Communities across the country have seen deadly shootings carried out with the devices, small pieces of metal or plastic, which convert semi-automatic weapons to automatic fire that spray bullets with one squeeze of the trigger.
The conversion devices were used in a September shooting that killed four people outside a Birmingham lounge, police believe. The rapid hard-to-control spray of bullets means more victims and more bystanders wounded or killed, police say. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin called Glock switches "the number one public safety issue in our city and state.”
Rep. Phillip Ensler, a Montgomery Democrat, has again filed legislation that would make possession of the devices a Class C felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. "These devices, they wreak havoc. We can’t bring lives back, but we can try to save some lives moving forward,” he said.
Ahead of the session, Rep. Kenyatté Hassell, a Democrat from Montgomery, said he wanted to separate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the federal holiday set aside to honor the life of the civil rights icon— from Robert E. Lee Day, which honors the Confederate general on the same day in Alabama.
“There are fundamental difference between General Lee and Dr. King. The Confederate general, he fought the preserve slavery and uphold the whole institution of white supremacy. Dr. King was a civil rights leader who fought for equality and justice for all people,” Hassell said.
The holiday celebrating Lee and King together comes in states where Black residents account for more than a quarter of the population. Black citizens make up 36% of the population in Mississippi and 27% in Alabama.
Hassell in 2023 introduced legislation, co-sponsored with more than a dozen other lawmakers, that would remove the reference to Lee on the January holiday. Another 2024 bill would have moved the Lee holiday to Columbus Day in October, which coincides with the month of his death. Neither bill made it to a floor vote.
Tonight, Gov. Ivey will deliver her priorities. The annual state of the state address will be given to a joint session of the Alabama Legislature at 6:00 p.m. in the Old House Chamber of the State Capitol.
The State of the State address will be broadcasted live across various platforms.
The speech will also be available via "live" webcast here: https://www.ebmcdn.net/webcast/flash/aptv/apt2-jw8-sbr-crimson.html
