It's against the law in Kennesaw, Georgia. do not have owning a gun.
A city law passed in the 1980s requires residents to own guns and ammunition.
Kennesaw County's gun control law states: “In order to provide for and protect the safety, security, and general welfare of the city and its residents, every head of a household residing within the city limits shall possess a firearm, along with ammunition. ” is required.
The law excludes residents with mental or physical disabilities, convictions for felonies, or conflicting religious beliefs.
“It's not like you walk around with this on your hip like in the Wild West,” said Derek Easterling, the town's three-term mayor. told BBC News.
“We don't knock on your door and say, 'Show us your weapon.'”
The mayor told the BBC that to his knowledge and that of several other local officials, no prosecutions or arrests had been made for violating the 1982 law.
The law is a source of pride for some and embarrassment for others.
Most residents told the BBC that there had been no murders in the town in 2023 and that the law was keeping residents safe. Kennesaw Police Department Data.
However, there were two suicides by gun.
“If anything, criminals should be worried, because if they break into your home and you're there, they don't know what you got.”Local Pizza The store customer insisted.
Blake Weatherby, groundskeeper at Kennesaw First Baptist Church, told the BBC: “What's keeping gun crime down here in Kennesaw isn't the guns, it's the attitude towards guns.”
“It doesn't matter if it's a gun, a fork, a fist, a high heeled shoe. We're going to protect ourselves and our neighbors.”
Weatherby said he at one time owned more than 20 guns, but now he doesn't own any.
Pat Ferris, who became a Kennesaw City Council member in 1984, just a few years after gun control was passed, said gun control was created as “a political statement more than anything else,” adding, “I don't know how many people are going to talk about it. I don't even know if they know,” he added. Regulations exist. ”
Morton Grove, Illinois, became the first city in the United States to ban guns, while Kennesaw became the first to mandate gun ownership. Similar laws have been passed in at least four other U.S. cities. Virgin, Utah. Nelson, Georgia and Nucla, Colorado.
City Councilwoman Madeline Orochena described the law as a “weird little fact about our community.”
“Residents will either roll their eyes in a bit of embarrassment or laugh at it,” she told the BBC.
