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Kennesaw, Georgia, has all the small-town fixings one might imagine in the American South. There’s the smell of baked biscuits wafting from Honeysuckle Biscuits & Bakery and the rumble of a nearby railroad train. It’s the kind of place where newlyweds leave hand-written thank-you cards in coffee shops, praising the “cozy” atmosphere. But there’s another aspect of Kennesaw that some might find surprising – a city law from the 1980s that legally requires residents to own guns and ammo.
The same year the gun law took effect, the church groundskeeper, Blake Weatherby, was born. He recalled a childhood where his dad would half-jokingly tell him: “I don’t care if you don’t like guns, it’s the law.”
The city law plainly states: “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 city limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition.”
In the 40 years since the gun law was passed, Mayor Easterling said, the existence of this ordinance has faded from consciousness for the most people.
It was Mr Ferris, who passed away in June 2023 at the age of 102, who fought hard to ban firearms in some schools and, indeed, this same gun safety proposal in which it was originally discussed.
No one that I’ve spoken with in Kennesaw knows more about the evolution of gun controls here than City Manager Mike Davis, who as we know always puts the citizen at the head of the procession of those fighting the fight.
Among the first cases he came to, while there, on February 2002, included Mr. Harris v. Lassiter was.
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