You can carry a gun, but do you have to lock your car door?

One of the nation’s most interesting battles over gun rights is taking shape in Savannah.

In Savannah, like Atlanta, gun thefts from automobiles have come to be regarded as easy pickings by street criminals. Last year, according to the Savannah Police Department, there were 244 gun thefts from cars, and in 203 of those cases the cars were unlocked.

Last month, the Savannah City Council agreed with Mayor Van Johnson and passed an ordinance that requires that guns in cars be stored in a secure place, such as a glovebox, and that unoccupied cars be locked when there’s a gun inside. Also, it requires that gun thefts be reported within 24 hours of being discovered.

The ordinance was quickly challenged in a lawsuit brought by a Jesup man, Clarence Belt, who claims his disabilities make it hard to comply with the ordinance when he comes to Savannah, where he brings a gun for his protection.

This was followed quickly by a letter from Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr saying the ordinance conflicts with the sweeping package of gun legislation passed by the legislature in 2022.

“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.

This was not a surprise to Johnson.

“We expected lawsuits,” the mayor said last week. “Matter of fact, we probably welcome them, and we expected some pushback.”

Carr’s interpretation is in line with the letter of the so called open carry law, which goes to considerable lengths to remove local governments from having any say in regulating guns. If Savannah defends the ordinance in. Court, as Johnson clearly intends to do, it would presumably be on the grounds that the state law is overly broad.

You have to think Savannah faces long odds in defending its ordinance in court, but Johnson appears determined to do so. Asked about Carr’s complaint that Savannah didn’t submit its proposed ordinance for review by the state before it was voted on, Johnson said city officials were “pretty sure what the reaction would be.” A former police officer who says he often carries a gun, Johnson is insistent that he is addressing an obvious problem and infringing on no one’s rights.

A lawsuit, if it goes forward, has the potential to spotlight how the pro-gun laws passed in recent years have expanded the reach of the Second Amendment well beyond what was originally intended.

When Dodge City, Kansas, incorporated in 1878, the first law it passed banned carrying guns in town. There was a similar law in Tombstone, Ariz., when the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral occurred in 1882.

That law was long gone by the time Arizona passed its local preemption law in 2000. But after a mix-up at a staged gunfight for tourists a few years later, the Tombstone City Council passed an ordinance regulating guns that shoot blanks. Legal experts were quick to say that under Arizona law they couldn’t even do that.

One question we might ask is whether the state, since it has assigned all authority concerning guns to itself, could pass a law requiring people to lock their vehicles if there are guns in them. But that would only be a hypothetical question because there is no chance the General Assembly would pass the same measure that the Savannah City Council passed unanimously.

There are legitimate questions about how effective the Savannah ordinance could be. A violation carries with it a fine of $1,000 and up to 30 days in jail. That seems like enough to spur at least a few people to push a little button and lock their car. But the difficult question is, how many people are simply not going to report a gun theft to avoid a fine or jail time?

That, however, is a question to be considered after we’ve settled whether a local government has any agency in addressing a local problem or whether it’s an issue of “general, state-wide concern,” in Carr’s words, whenever there’s a barrel at the end of it.