By Russ Bynum
Associated Press
SAVANNAH, Ga. — A Georgia judge Wednesday threw out the case of a man cited for violating a Savannah ordinance that imposes fines and possible jail time for leaving guns in unlocked cars, ruling that the ordinance violates state law and the U.S. Constitution.
The decision by a Chatham County Recorder’s Court judge likely applies only to the case of the defendant who challenged the gun ordinance as part of his criminal defense. Savannah’s mayor said he believes the city will continue to enforce the local law.
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“We’ve had this in existence now for quite some time and we have reduced the number of guns stolen from unlocked vehicles in Savannah,” Mayor Van Johnson told reporters.
Johnson and Savannah’s city council voted unanimously last year to outlaw keeping firearms in unlocked vehicles, with maximum penalties of a $1,000 fine and 30 days in jail. They said the law would make it harder for criminals to steal guns in a state where lawmakers have widely abolished restrictions on owning and carrying firearms.
Clayton Papp was cited by Savannah police for violating the ordinance in August 2024, according to court records. Papp’s attorney asked the judge presiding over his case to dismiss the citation.
Recorder’s Court Judge Brian Joseph Huffman Jr. threw out the case Wednesday, issuing a 12-page ruling that declared Savannah’s ordinance “void and unenforceable.”
Huffman said the ordinance violates a state law that prohibits local governments from regulating “the possession, ownership, transport, (or) carrying” of firearms. He ruled that it also “burdens conduct covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment.”
Joshua Peacock, a spokesman for Savannah City Hall, said local officials had no immediate comment on the judge’s ruling or whether they planned to appeal. Papp’s defense attorney, Donald Lee Montgomery Jr., also declined to comment.
“This is a major victory for law-abiding gun owners, who shouldn’t be punished for the actions of criminals & thieves,” Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, a Republican, said in a social media post.
Despite its finding that Savannah’s gun ordinance is illegal, the judge’s ruling should only apply to Papp’s case because the challenge was raised as part of a criminal defense, rather than a broader lawsuit seeking an injunction to halt further enforcement, said Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor.
“In theory, the city could continue to enforce the ordinance and leave it to individual defendants to raise this question again as a defense,” Kreis said.
A prior lawsuit seeking to prohibit enforcement of Savannah’s gun ordinance was dismissed last December by a different judge in Chatham County Superior Court. He ruled that the gun owner who filed the legal challenge lacked standing to sue because he wasn’t a Savannah resident and hadn’t been cited under the ordinance.
Johnson, a Democrat and former police officer, has touted the gun ordinance as a way to make gun owners act responsibly without infringing on their rights to own or carry firearms.
The mayor said Wednesday the number of guns stolen from unlocked cars reported to Savannah police dropped from more than 200 in 2023, the year before the gun ordinance was adopted, to just over 100 this year.
“Concerns over firearms stolen from vehicles and later used in violent crime are in fact concerning,” the judge’s ruling said. “Good intentions, however, do not immunize legislation from constitutional scrutiny.”
