If Kemp signs Senate Bill 204, Savannah would be barred from enforcing the 2024 ordinance, which carried maximum penalties of a $1,000 fine and 30 days in jail for leaving guns in unlocked vehicles. The measure also authorizes gun owners to sue local governments that adopt storage regulations, collecting at least $25,000 in damages if they prevail.

Georgia’s state Senate gave final passage Tuesday to legislation that would void a Savannah ordinance requiring gun owners to secure firearms in locked vehicles, sending the measure to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature or veto.

Senate Bill 204 adds the word “storage” to existing state law that already bars cities and counties from regulating firearm possession, carry, and transfer — closing a gap Savannah officials had used to justify the local rule. The bill also authorizes gun owners to sue local governments that adopt storage regulations, collecting at least $25,000 in damages if they prevail.

If Kemp signs the bill, Savannah would be barred from enforcing the 2024 ordinance, which carried maximum penalties of a $1,000 fine and 30 days in jail for leaving guns in unlocked vehicles.

Savannah’s ordinance

Savannah Mayor Van Johnson and the city council voted unanimously in 2024 to outlaw leaving firearms in unlocked vehicles. Johnson, a Democrat and former police officer, said the ordinance was designed to promote responsible gun ownership without restricting rights to possess or carry firearms.

Johnson said Tuesday that gun thefts from unlocked vehicles reported to Savannah police had dropped 30% since the ordinance took effect.

“It’s a sad thing that the General Assembly says over 200 guns stolen from unlocked vehicles is OK,” Johnson told the AP.

Johnson said the city would comply if Kemp signs the bill and would stop issuing citations. He declined to specify what other gun safety measures city officials might pursue, saying only that other ordinances might be considered.

Johnson also said he does not expect the bill’s liability provisions to apply retroactively to citations already issued.

State preemption

Supporters of the bill said the Savannah ordinance penalized gun owners whose firearms were stolen from their vehicles.

“Ultimately what Savannah was doing was regulating citizens’ right to have a gun in their car,” former state Sen. Colton Moore, a Republican from Trenton, told the AP. “Their car was getting broken into, and they were going from a victim of a crime now to being a criminal. And that’s what we don’t want to happen going forward.”

Moore resigned from the Senate on Tuesday after the bill passed, having filed to run for the congressional seat vacated by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation.

Opposition

Gun control advocates said the legislature overrode a local ordinance with a documented record of reducing gun thefts.

“Time and time again, young people in this state are told that our safety isn’t a priority. But this bill takes it a step further by actually punishing the cities that are stepping up to protect us when our state lawmakers won’t,” said Nolan Tanner, a volunteer with the Students Demand Action chapter at Jenkins High School in Savannah.

In November, a Chatham County Recorder’s Court judge threw out the case of a man cited under the Savannah ordinance, ruling it violated state law and the U.S. Constitution. That ruling applied only to the individual defendant’s case. Johnson said at the time the city would continue enforcement, and the city maintained the ordinance covered storage — a category the existing state preemption statute had not explicitly addressed. Senate Bill 204 resolves that ambiguity by adding the word.