Georgia lawmakers on Tuesday gave final passage to a bill aimed at voiding a Savannah ordinance that penalizes leaving guns in unlocked vehicles. The state Senate approved the measure, which would prevent cities and counties from regulating how guns are stored, and would allow gun owners to sue local governments over such rules that violate state law.
The bill, Senate Bill 204, also creates a path for damages: gun owners who win would be able to collect at least $25,000. The measure now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp, where it will await his signature or veto.
Savannah Mayor Van Johnson and the city council voted unanimously in 2024 to outlaw keeping firearms in unlocked vehicles, with maximum penalties of a $1,000 fine and 30 days in jail. City leaders said the ordinance would make it harder for criminals to steal guns in a state where lawmakers have widely abolished restrictions on owning and carrying firearms.
Gun rights advocates challenged the concept of a storage ban, saying it effectively punishes people whose guns are stolen. Former state Sen. Colton Moore, a Republican from Trenton, argued that “Ultimately what Savannah was doing was regulating citizens’ right to have a gun in their car,” adding that the result of a vehicle break-in was that “they were going from a victim of a crime now to being a criminal.”
Moore resigned from the Georgia Senate on Tuesday after the bill passed, because he had filed to run for the congressional seat left vacant by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resignation, according to the report.
Johnson said Tuesday that if Kemp signs the bill into law, Savannah will stop issuing citations under the ordinance. “Obviously we’re going to comply with the law,” Johnson said in an interview with the Associated Press, adding that if the governor signs it, “we won’t enforce that ordinance anymore.” Johnson said there could be other ordinances that come forward but declined to say what kind of measures the city might consider.
Johnson, a Democrat and former police officer, also defended the ordinance as a way to encourage responsible behavior without infringing on ownership or carry rights. He said the number of gun thefts from unlocked vehicles reported to Savannah police had dropped 30% since the ordinance took effect, and he said it was “a sad thing that the General Assembly says over 200 guns stolen from unlocked vehicles is OK.”
Georgia law already bars cities and counties from regulating firearm “possession, ownership, transport, carrying, transfer, sale, purchase (or) licensing,” the report said. Savannah officials have said that their ordinance targeted storage, arguing that state law did not explicitly forbid it; state lawmakers later amended the law by adding the word “storage” to the existing restrictions.
Gun control advocates said lawmakers were wrong to preempt Savannah’s ordinance. Nolan Tanner, a volunteer with the Students Demand Action chapter at Jenkins High School in Savannah, said in a statement that young people in Georgia have been told “our safety isn’t a priority,” and that “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.”
The Savannah ordinance has also faced legal challenges. In November, a Chatham County Recorder’s Court judge threw out the case of a man cited for violating the ordinance, ruling that it violated state law and the U.S. Constitution. Johnson said at the time that the ruling applied only to the defendant who challenged the ordinance as part of his criminal defense, and that the city would keep enforcing it.
Johnson also said Tuesday he was not worried about additional legal liability and potential fines outlined in the bill, saying he “doesn’t believe it could be retroactive.”