(The Center Square) – Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit challenging a Savannah gun ordinance.
Carr advised the city in a letter sent in May 2024 to rescind the ordinance, which requires gun owners to lock their vehicles if their firearms are inside and make sure they are not in plain view. Gun owners are also required to report stolen firearms within 48 hours.
Anyone who violates the ordinance could be fined up to $1,000. The ordinance was passed in April 2024.
The attorney general said the city could face legal challenges. Georgia law prohibits local governments from enacting legislation that restricts citizens from carrying firearms.
Savannah is being sued by the Firearms Policy Coalition and Deacon Morris, who received a citation in 2024 for not following the ordinance.
“Finally, even the best of arguments cannot escape the broad language of O.C.G.A. § 16-11-173(b)(1). This statute prohibits counties or municipalities from regulating the possession, ownership, or transport of firearms in any manner – exactly what the Savannah ordinances do,” Carr said in the brief supporting the lawsuit. “Those ordinances expressly regulate how firearm owners possess, store, and transport firearms and, therefore, fall within the scope of O.C.G.A. § 16-11-173(b)(1).”
The Georgia Senate passed a bill that would allow anyone fined under the ordinance to sue the city. It did not make it out of the House of Representatives.
Carr called the ordinance “progressive politics.”
“This misguided attempt to punish law-abiding Georgians does absolutely nothing to address crime, and it won’t hold up in Court,” Carr said. “No matter how much the Mayor disagrees with our laws, he cannot openly infringe on the Second Amendment rights of our citizens.”
