It started off with the city of Savannah deciding that it could charge people for having their guns stolen. Georgia, though, is a preemption state, and state law is pretty clear about what laws local governments can pass. The only exception is laws against discharging a firearm in the city limits.
Savannah didn't care and proceeded, so the General Assembly decided to intervene, and Gov. Brian Kemp vetoed it.
That's strange since Kemp is pretty pro-gun, right? Well, he had his reasons, and I actually understand them.
Gov. Brian Kemp has vetoed a bill that would have blocked local governments from punishing motorists for keeping firearms unsecured in parked cars.
Senate Bill 204 targeted ordinances like one passed in Savannah that makes motorists liable for up to a $1,000 fine and 30 days in jail for leaving a gun in an unlocked vehicle.
In a statement, Kemp said he was vetoing the legislation because it would open law enforcement officers to lawsuits for enforcing the rules even though they had no say in enacting them.
“I wholeheartedly support increasing the monetary penalties for local governments that attempt to impede the rights of lawful weapon carriers; however, such penalties should be targeted towards the leaders who enact such ordinances, not the officers who are tasked with enforcing them,” Kemp wrote.
Now, for the record, I don't think anyone should leave a gun in an unlocked vehicle. I think it's stupid and dangerous. That doesn't mean Savannah deciding to prosecute people for doing so is warranted.
Kemp's reasoning, though, that the police officers themselves shouldn't be punishable, is something that I can completely understand. I would think that qualified immunity, despite all its many ills, would protect them from personally being sued, but maybe I'm wrong.
I do think the leaders who pass these measures should personally feel the pain of any penalties for doing so, and the bill tried to put some teeth into the state's preemption law. That's a big problem in many places, because while preemption is on the books, there really isn't any downside to a city trying to pass local gun control. If the court sides with them, they win. If not, well, they still win a bit because they at least looked like they're bending the knee to gun control sensibilities.
Yet anti-gunners in the state managed to get a completely different message from Kemp's veto.
Heather Hallett, the founder and director of Georgia Majority for Gun Safety, said she’s celebrating the veto as a victory.
“I am just thrilled that public safety and specifically the right of municipalities to decide their own public safety framework is what won in the end,” she said.
While Hallett went on to rail against preemption laws in more general terms, pretending this is some kind of new trend or "playbook," as she termed it, which is strange because those laws have been on the books for decades in some places, including Georgia.
And nothing about Kemp's veto killed preemption in the state. Municipalities have no more authority to pass local gun control than they would have if Kemp signed it. There just aren't any monetary penalties for violating preemption. The courts still have every reason to strike it down, as they have every other time it's come up over the last 20 years or so, at a minimum.
Kemp was clear that he supports preemption. He just doesn't want officers held personally accountable for doing their jobs. That's not the worst sensibility for someone to have on this.
But anti-gunners aren't exactly known for being rational.
If they were, they wouldn't be anti-gun.
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