(C) Georgia Recorder
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Chris Carr jumps into lawsuit challenging Savannah gun restrictions • Georgia Recorder [1]
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Date: 2025-08
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr has filed a brief in support of a lawsuit against Savannah Mayor Van Johnson over a local ordinance aimed at penalizing gun owners who leave firearms in unlocked cars, escalating an ongoing feud between Georgia’s top prosecutor and the mayor of the state’s oldest city.
The lawsuit stems from an ordinance that was unanimously passed by Johnson and the Savannah City Council in April 2024, requiring firearms to be “securely stored” when left in cars and establishing a maximum penalty of $1,000 in fines and 30 days in jail for people who leave them inside unlocked vehicles. It also mandates that those who have had a firearm stolen report the theft to the Savannah Police Department within 24 hours.
“This misguided attempt to punish law-abiding Georgians does absolutely nothing to address crime, and it won’t hold up in Court,” Carr said in a press release Monday. “No matter how much the Mayor disagrees with our laws, he cannot openly infringe on the Second Amendment rights of our citizens. Progressive politics aren’t a defense for government overreach.”
Savannah city officials hoped that by mandating that gun owners lock their cars, they could cut down on the number of firearms stolen. According to police data, 203 of the 244 guns stolen in cars in 2023 were in unlocked vehicles.
But the ordinance drew the ire of Republican state legislators during the 2025 legislative session, who tried unsuccessfully to pass a bill allowing recipients of Savannah’s gun storage fine to sue the city for up to $50,000 in damages – though that was later lowered to $25,000 when the proposal was added to another bill. That measure remains alive for next year.
Carr, who is a candidate for governor next year, also sent a letter to Savannah officials warning that the city had overstepped its authority in passing the ordinance.
“Because the General Assembly has expressly designated the regulation of firearms as an issue of general, state-wide concern, no local ordinance can regulate firearms,” Carr wrote in the letter.
Less than a month after the ordinance was passed, Jesup resident Clarence Belt filed a lawsuit challenging the city’s ordinance. However, Chatham County Superior Court Judge Benjamin Karpf ultimately dismissed the case for lack of standing, as Belt was not a resident of Savannah and had not been cited under the law. Belt’s lawyer, John Monroe, is now representing Deacon Morris and the Firearms Policy Coalition in a new lawsuit against the city, in which Carr has filed an amicus curiae.
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