The town in Georgia where everyone has to own a gun

Kennesaw, Georgia, has all the makings of a small town in the American South.

There is the smell of freshly baked biscuits from Honeysuckle Biscuits & Bakery and the sound of the nearby railroad tracks. It’s the kind of place where newlyweds leave handwritten thank-you cards in coffee shops, appreciating the “fun” atmosphere.

But there’s another aspect of Kennesaw that some may be surprised by — a city ordinance from the 1980s that legally requires people to carry guns and ammunition.

“It’s not like you’re walking around on your hip like the Wild Wild West,” said Derek Easterling, the town’s three-time mayor and self-described “retired Navy guy.”

“We’re not going to knock on your door and say, ‘Let me see your weapon.’

Kennesaw’s gun ordinance clearly states: “To provide for and protect the safety, security and common good of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing within the city limits shall possess a firearm, together with ammunition.”

People with mental or physical disabilities, crimes, or conflicting religious beliefs are not allowed.

To the knowledge of Mayor Easterling, and to the knowledge of several local officials, there have been no charges or arrests for violating Article II, Sec 34-21, which became law in 1982.

And no one the BBC spoke to could say what the punishment would be if found guilty.

However, the mayor insisted: “It is not a symbolic law.

For some, the law is a shame, an acknowledgment that the city has a gun culture.

For some, it is a source of shame, a page in a chapter of history they want to move on.

But the main belief among the townspeople about the gun ordinance is that it protects Kennesaw.

Patrons who eat pepperoni slices at pizza parlors ask: “If anything, criminals should be involved, because if they come into your house, and you’re there, they don’t know what you have.”

There were no homicides in 2023, according to data from the Kennesaw Police Department, but there were two gun-related suicides.

Blake Weatherby, groundskeeper at Kennesaw First Baptist Church, has different ideas why crime might be down.

“It’s the gun activity here in Kennesaw that keeps gun crime down, not the gun,” Weatherby said.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a gun or a fork or a fist or high boots. We protect ourselves and our neighbors.”

Pat Ferris, who joined the Kennesaw city council in 1984, two years after the law was passed, said the law was designed to be “more of a political statement than anything”.

After Morton Grove, Illinois became the first US city to ban gun ownership, Kennesaw became the first city to require it, sparking national news.

A 1982 New York Times opinion piece described Kennesaw officials as “happy” with the law but noted that “Yankee criminologists” were not.

Penthouse Magazine ran the story on its front page with the caption Gun Town USA: An American Town Where Guns Are Not Legal printed over a photo of a blonde woman in a bikini.

Similar gun laws have been passed in at least five cities, including Gun Barrel City, Texas and Virgin, Utah.

In the 40 years since Kennesaw’s gun ordinance was enacted, Ferris said, its presence has largely faded.

“I don’t know how many people know that this law exists,” he said.

The same year the gun law went into effect, Mr. Weatherby, a church superintendent, was born.

He remembered his childhood when his father jokingly told him: “I don’t care if you don’t like guns, it’s the law.”

“I was taught that if you are a man, you should have a gun,” he said.

He is now 42 years old, and he was 12 years old the first time he fired a gun.

“I almost dropped it because it scared me so much,” he said.

Mr Weatherby once owned more than 20 guns but said he now has none. He sold them over the years – including the one his father left him in 2005 – to make ends meet.

“I wanted more air than a gun,” he said.

One place he would go to sell his guns was the Deercreek Gun Shop on Main Street in Kennesaw.

James Rabun, 36, has been working as a gun dealer since he graduated high school.

It is a family business, he said, opened by his father and grandfather, both of whom are still present there today; his father in the back returning the gun, his grandfather in the front resting in a rocking chair.

For obvious reasons, Mr. Rabun favors Kennesaw’s gun laws. It is good for business.

“The interesting thing about firearms”, he said with genuine interest, “is that people buy them for self-defense, but many people like them as art or as bitcoin – rare things.”

Among the many weapons hanging on the wall for sale are two black powder guns – similar to muskets – and several “they don’t-make-this” Winchester rifles from the 1800s.

In Kennesaw, gun patriotism reaches far beyond gun shop owners and middle-aged men.

Cris Welsh, a mother of two young daughters, is not ashamed of gun ownership. He hunts, is a member of a gun club, and shoots at a rifle range with his two girlfriends.

“I’m a gun owner”, he admitted, listing his inventory which included “a Ruger pistol, a Baretta, a Glock, and about half a dozen handguns”.

However, Welsh does not like Kennesaw’s gun ordinance.

“I get embarrassed when I hear people talking about gun laws,” Welsh said. “It’s an old Kennesaw thing for us to use.”

He wished that when outsiders thought of the city, they would think of parks and schools and community traditions — not gun laws that “make people uncomfortable.”

“There’s a lot in Kennesaw,” he said.

City council member Madelyn Orochena admits that the law is “something people don’t like to publicize”.

He said: “This is an amazing story about our community.

“Residents might roll their eyes a little in embarrassment or laugh at it.”