KENNESAW, Georgia — A Georgia city’s law requiring the heads of households to own a firearm is back in the news.
The BBC recently featured the city of Kennesaw’s “gun law.” City leaders passed the measure in 1982, but it’s not enforced.
“It’s not like you go around wearing it on your hip like the Wild Wild West,” the BBC quoted Mayor Derek Easterling as saying. “We’re not going to go knock on your door and say, ‘Let me see your weapon.’”
Privately, some city officials think the gun law is a selling point for the city. However, many residents may not know the law is on the books.
“It was meant to be kind of a crime deterrent,” CNN quoted Kennesaw Police Lt. Craig Graydon as saying in 2018. “It was also more or less a political statement because the city of Morton Grove, Illinois, passed a city ordinance banning handguns from their city limits.”
(a) In order to provide for the emergency management of the city, and further in order to provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing in the city limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition therefore.
(b) Exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who suffer a physical or mental disability which would prohibit them from using such a firearm. Further exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who are paupers or who conscientiously oppose maintaining firearms as a result of beliefs or religious doctrine, or persons convicted of a felony.
(Ord. No. 2009-03, Exh. A, 2-16-09)
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