Georgia Lawmakers Shut Down Mayor’s Attempt to Punish Victims of Gun Theft From Vehicles

At least one Georgia court has already ruled that a recently passed ordinance in Savannah that requires gun owners to keep their doors locked if they leave guns inside their vehicles is a violation of the state’s firearm preemption law, but now Georgia legislators have made it explicitly clear that the ordinance is a legal no-no. 

The state’s preemption law currently political subdivisions from regulating, in any manner:

• The possession, ownership, transport, carrying, transfer, sale, purchase, licensing, or registration of firearms or other weapons or components of firearms or other weapons;
• Firearms dealers or dealers of other weapons; or
• Dealers in components of firearms or other weapons.

The prohibitions on regulating the possession and transport of firearms should have stopped Savannah from adopting its ordinance, but Mayor Van Johnson contended that the preemption statute still allowed cities like Savannah to impose regulations on the storage of firearms. SB 204 adds the word “storage” to the law, and once Gov. Brian Kemp signs the bill Johnson’s flawed rationale will officially be moot. 

“Ultimately what Savannah was doing was regulating citizens right to have a gun in their car,” said state Sen. Colton Moore, a Republican from Trenton, told The Associated Press. “Their car was getting broken into, and they were going from a victim of a crime now to being a criminal. And that’s what we don’t want to happen going forward.”

Johnson said Tuesday that if Kemp signs the bill into law, the city will stop issuing citations.

“Obviously we’re going to comply with the law,” Johnson said in a phone interview with the AP. “So should the governor sign it, we won’t enforce that ordinance anymore. But there might be other ordinances that come forth.”

He declined to say what other type of gun safety measure city officials might consider.

Probably because he has no clue about what to do next. 

I’ve got an idea, though: crack down on thieves stealing stuff from vehicles instead of gun owners who mistakenly left their car doors unlocked with a gun or other belongings inside. 

Yes, it’s a terrible idea to leave a gun inside an unlocked vehicle, but it’s unwise to leave your car unlocked and unattended in general. If Johnson wants to encourage residents to lock up their cars that would still be allowed under the state’s preemption law, but the city has no authority to them for failing to do so.

Johnson is desperately trying to spin SB 204 as a soft-on-crime measure, complaining that ““[i]t’s a sad thing that the General Assembly says over 200 guns stolen from unlocked vehicles is OK.” 

That’s not what Georgia lawmaker are saying, though. Theft of a firearm is already a felony offense under Georgia law, so the legislature has clearly stated it’s not okay to steal a gun; whether from a car, home, or business. It’s also a felony to knowingly possess a stolen firearm, so Savannah police already have plenty of tools available to them to crack down on those stealing guns. 

Johnson’s ordinance was simply a way to try to blame the victims of crime instead of the thieves themselves, and I’m glad to see the Georgia legislature has shut down his pathetic attempt to scapegoat gun owners for the actions of criminals. Try as he might, I don’t think Johnson is going to be able to target legal gun owners after this, but I’m sure his allies in the gun control lobby are furiously looking for any kind of loophole in the state’s preemption law they can exploit going forward.