A city ordinance requiring all heads of household to own both a firearm and ammunition has many advocates of gun control up in arms.
Nelson, Georgia, a tiny town of about 1,300 residents, is facing a legal battle over a city ordinance passed in early April that requires “every head of household to have a gun and ammunition.” According to CNN, The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence “filed a federal lawsuit” on Thursday, claiming the new law is “unconstitutional.”
The suit says the law violates the First Amendment to the Constitution because requiring people to purchase a firearm when they don’t want to own one violates their freedom of speech and their “freedom to act or not to act.” The law violates the 14th Amendment because it creates two classes of individuals: heads of households and non-heads of households, the suit says.
The suit also says the law violates the Second Amendment, because that amendment does not require, or permit the government to require, owning a firearm.
A spokesman for The Brady Center said in a statement:
In this lawsuit we seek to establish that the government does not have the authority to compel Americans to buy guns or bring them into their homes … Forcing residents to buy guns they do not want or need won’t make the City of Nelson or its people any safer, and only serves to increase gun sales and gun industry profits. A gun brought into your home is far more likely to be used to injure or kill a family member, than to ward off an intruder.
Local officials and town leaders insist the ordinance is “largely symbolic, is not actually being enforced, and anyone who opposes gun ownership on moral or religious grounds can opt out.” They also point out that citizens who “suffer from a physical or mental disability,” felons, “paupers” or people who “conscientiously oppose maintaining firearms as a result of beliefs or religious doctrine,” can opt out of purchasing a fire arm. Advocates also argue that the new law is a “protest against the push toward stricter gun control at a federal level.”
But as The Brady Center points out, the ordinance actually states that there is a $1,000 fine for any “head of household” who does not meet the exemption requirements and still refuses to purchase a gun and ammunition.
The case has yet to be scheduled to go before a federal judge.
Surely there are better ways for that town council to spend their time than passing laws like this one. If not, then reconsider the role of that local government. If this was the only thing on the agenda, then I say cancel the meeting. What about that thing where the government that governs best governs least?
Resisting gun control is somewhat symbolic. Red state people do it, and also resist other progressive policies, because they see liberals as patronizing them. They’re right (no pun) to a great extent. We need a national raproachment around understanding.
OMG! At first I thought about an April Fool’s joke… this news is THAT surreal to me!
But since it’s actually May, that’s not a possibility.
I’m sorry about sounding “racist”, but I believe only in U.S.A. such a foolish (or should I say, more aptly, idiotic) ordinance could have been issued.
I think not even in Nazi’s Germany (!) regular citizens were obliged to own firearms.
You would be correct that Nazi Germany didn’t require regular citizens to own firearms. In 1935, they began taking first steps towards disarming the target demographic, aka Jews. By 1938 it was illegal for any Jew to own a firearm or even to work in a firearms or ammunition manufacturing center. So a city ordinance that would have all citizens, regardless of creed or ethnicity and who are not criminally or mentally disqualified, with access to a firearm with which to protect their homes and families is quite awesome. Nothing the Brady Center has said seems to have a strong… Read more »
I think most totalitarian regimes try to keep regular citizens from owning weapons, not require them to own weapons.