2nd Amendment issue

by Sam Smiley
Monday’s BOC work session was highlighted around two major items, both blowing up in the Chairman’s face. The first are amendments to two of the county ordinances that are in place now regarding possession of a firearm on county park and Lakeview Estates property. In these ordinances the county regulates the possession of a firearm, according to State statue O.C.G.A. § 16-11-173 the “county or municipal corporation” may NOT regulate firearms in any way. The General Assembly reserves this power for themselves. For all the details see the e-mail message that is attached to this message. Commissioner Nesbitt asked me to send this information to him and the attached is the result with details.

Rockdale resident Jud Kidney brought this to the attention of the BOC back in October when he notified Chairman Oden about the county’s violation of state code. After several weeks of no reply on this issue from the Chairman Mr. Kidney contacted Commissioners Van Ness and Nesbitt.  Commissioner Van Ness was the only one to reply to Mr. Kidney and they have been working towards getting this on the agenda ever sense.

Mr. Kidney has mentioned that the reason that he brought this to the attention of the BOC is because his wife likes to walk the trails at the South Rockdale park. With these ordinances on the Rockdale County books she would be unable to carry a pistol with her to protect herself on these remote trails without violating county ordinances. The charge wouldn’t stick if she were to get caught with a firearm on park property since the ordinance violates state law but she shouldn’t have to go through the trouble to fight the charge.

At Monday’s work session Chairman Oden had a “knee jerk” reaction to these amendments when he announced this agenda item. It was very clear to me that he had not read through the changes to the ordinances, his comments were that he would not be in favor of citizens carrying firearms in the administration building, court house, jail, etc. This prompted a comment from Sheriff Wigington, the Sheriff also agreed to keep firearms out of the above listed locations. The Chairman also commented that there is currently legislation in the General Assembly that may change these ordinances, this simply is not true, the only firearms bills in the General Assembly at present are SB308 and SB291, neither of which affect O.C.G.A. § 16-11-173.

However neither of these ordinances in question mentioned any of the above locations, they specifically mention county parks and Lakeview Estates. County Clerk Jennifer Rutledge suggested that the BOC remove this item from their agenda rather than vote on the first read of these amendments at the Tuesday session.

On Tuesday I presented the Commissioners with the documentation that Mr. Kidney had pulled through open records over the last several months.  I informed the board that these ordinances violated State statues and that any vote other than to approve these changes would be willfully violating State law.  Mr. Kidney’s work schedule would not allow him to be at either of these meetings, thus I was the presenter to the Board on this issue.

The discussion that ensued by the Commissioners was interesting to say the least. Commissioner Van Ness reemphasized that the ordinances were a violation of state law and that they should proceed with the vote on these amendments to bring these ordinances in line with State code.  Commissioner Nesbitt made a motion to defer the vote to the next voting session indicating that he would like to discuss these amendments with Sheriff Wigington who was absent from the voting session. Chairman Oden then made a second to Commissioner Nesbitt’s motion which then proceeded to a vote. The vote to defer these ordinance changes passed with a 2-1 vote with Commissioner Van Ness wanting to vote on this today.

In Chairman Oden’s closing comments he said that he would NOT support this legislation and that he would comply with State and Federal laws. There is a word for this type of statement…a word I would rather not use in print…I’m sure you can guess the word. It was a further display of his arrogance that we have seen week after week since he took office. At least he didn’t start talking about goose that fly in a V formation or being smarter than a 5th grader as he did at SRCA…and yes I know that the tense is incorrect.

I spoke to Sheriff Wigington prior to the voting session after I had sent the attached PDF to him Monday evening. Sheriff Wigington informed me that he was in full support of amending these ordinances to comply with State law after reviewing them. Sheriff Wigington also made comments to GCO president Ed Stone on these ordinances which Mr. Stone later published in his Atlanta Gun Rights Examiner article.