When word first came out, it sounded like a joke. But no, it’s for real.

The Georgia Senate is encouraging residents to purchase firearms by enacting a sales tax holiday on them and on accessories like scopes, gun safes and ammunition. Senate Bill 47 passed the Senate Feb. 12 and is under consideration by the House of Representatives.

A sales tax holiday is an event (often held annually) during which the Georgia Department of Revenue allows certain items to be purchased without the sales tax being collected by the participating retailer. 

The best known is the sales tax holiday for back-to-school supplies, everything from pencils and notebooks to laptop computers and clothing for students. Held every year since 2012, it’s been popular with parents because they have to purchase a lot of those things right at the start of the school year.

But even that sales tax holiday has been criticized for the expense and trouble retailers must go through to reset their cash registers. Some say it doesn’t drive the sales of expensive items like computers or school clothes; it just encourages parents to buy those things during that weekend, rather than some other time. 

If a tax holiday on school supplies can be criticized, imagine how much more a tax holiday on guns would be.

Actually, you don’t need to imagine. Opponents are already screaming about it.

They point to the deadly shooting last September in which a 14-year-old killed four people and wounded several others at Apalachee High School in Barrow County. Not only is the teen-ager charged, but his father also faces charges of second degree murder and involuntary manslaughter because he bought his son the gun that police say was used in the shooting. It is the deadliest school shooting in Georgia history, and it’s only five months old as lawmakers debate whether to encourage more people to buy guns.

“Are you all tone deaf?” Sen. Nan Orrock, D-Atlanta, questioned. “It’s like taking a knife and sticking it right into the very heart of a parent who’s lost a child.”

Proponents say the sales tax holiday is meant to encourage people to enjoy the outdoors, and it might. It’s certainly beneficial for hunters.

But hunters aren’t the only outdoorsmen. Fishing tackle wouldn’t be covered. Neither would bass boats. Nor hiking boots. Nor mountain bikes.

It seems a lot more likely that the sales tax holiday is intended to drive the sales and profits of gun manufacturers and sellers. Is that what we sent our senators and representatives to Atlanta to do?

People should be able to spend their money as they wish, so long as it’s on a legal product — and guns still are legal for most Georgians. It just feels “off” to have the Legislature pick winners and losers by cutting the sales tax on guns and their accessories, but not on other products.

And the timing — so soon after the Apalachee High shooting — looks really bad.