Firearms Policy Coalition Files to Enjoin Savannah’s Vehicle Gun Storage Ordinance

A couple of years ago, if you’d asked me what my favorite cities here in Georgia were, Savannah would have been at or near the top of the list. It’s our oldest city, for one thing, and it’s absolutely gorgeous any time of year. It’s where so much of our state’s history was made, from the time James Oglethorpe landed through the Civil War to today. It’s a city so beautiful that even Gen. Sherman wanted to spare it the torch, at least according to legend.

But I don’t like some of what they’re doing there, particularly with trying to charge people who have guns stolen out of their cars. I may not be a fan of leaving a gun unsecured in a car, but the truth is that gun storage in a vehicle is often more of a problem with gun-free zones than any willful lack of responsibility on the part of the gun owners.

Still, Savannah passed an ordinance to do just that.

Unfortunately for city leaders, Georgia is a preemption state. They can’t make their own gun control laws, though they’re trying. Now, they’re defending it in court, and the Firearms Policy Coalition just filed a motion to enjoin them from enforcing this blatantly illegal law.

Where: The motion in Morris v. Savannah was filed in Chatham County Superior Court in Georgia.

Why: A ruling in FPC’s favor would affirm that Georgia’s firearm preemption law means what it says and blocks local governments from creating a confusing patchwork of gun laws.

Quote: “Savannah passed gun control law that Georgia law explicitly forbids-and then kept enforcing them even after the state’s own Attorney General told them the laws were void. No city gets to ignore the Constitution, ignore state law, and ignore the state’s top law enforcement officer. We’re going to make sure Savannah answers for it,” said FPC President Brandon Combs.

And Savannah needs to answer for it.

Look, when you seek out the most dangerous cities in Georgia, Savannah doesn’t even make the top 10. My hometown of Albany does–yay–but Savannah isn’t.

That’s not saying they don’t have issues, mind you, but what they don’t have is any kind of grounds to even consider needing to violate the state’s preemption law. Not that being top of the list would excuse it either, mind you, but I could at least chalk some of that up to desperate local officials scrambling to “do something.”

Savannah doesn’t have that excuse.

What they have, though, is a mayor and city council that thinks it has the authority to infringe on your right to keep and bear arms, and screw what the Constitution or the State of Georgia has to say about that.

I’m glad the Firearms Policy Coalition is going after this illegal infringement, and I hope the courts make the right decision here, because the city has no authority to make any such rule, much less enforce it.

I also hope that the General Assembly wakes up and starts putting some teeth into the state’s preemption law so as to discourage other communities from trying this stunt.

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