BBCKennesaw, Georgia has all the small town amenities one could imagine in the American South.
The smell of baking cookies wafts from Honeysuckle Biscuits & Bakery and the rumble of a nearby railroad train. It’s the kind of place where newlyweds leave handwritten thank you cards in cafes and praise the “cozy” atmosphere.
But there’s another aspect of Kennesaw that might surprise some – a city law from the 1980s that makes it legal for residents to own guns and ammunition.
“It’s not like you wear it on your hip like in the Wild West,” said Derek Easterling, the city’s three-time mayor and self-described “retired Marine guy.”
“We’re not going to knock on your door and say, ‘Let me see your gun.'”
Kennesaw’s gun law clearly states: “In order to ensure and protect the safety and general welfare of the city and its residents, every head of a household residing within the city limits is required to possess a firearm and ammunition.”
Residents with mental or physical disabilities, felony convictions or conflicting religious beliefs are exempt from the law.
To the knowledge of Mayor Easterling and several local officials, there have been no prosecutions or arrests for violations of Article II, Section 34-21, which took effect in 1982.
And no one the BBC spoke to could say what the penalty would be for a breach.
Nevertheless, the mayor insisted: “It is not a symbolic law. I’m not into things that are just for show.”
For some, the law is a source of pride, a nod to the city’s acceptance of gun culture.
For others, it is a source of embarrassment, a chapter in history that they want to put behind them.
But townspeople’s main belief about the gun law is that it protects Kennesaw.
Patrons eating pepperoni slices at the local pizzeria suggest, “If anything, criminals have to worry because if they break into your house and you’re there, they don’t know what you have.”
According to the Kennesaw Police Department, there were no homicides in 2023, but there were two gun suicides.
Blake Weatherby, a groundskeeper at Kennesaw First Baptist Church, has different views on why violent crime might be low.
“It’s the attitude behind the guns here in Kennesaw that keeps gun crimes down, not the guns,” Weatherby said.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a gun or a fork or a fist or a high heel shoe. 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 created “more than a political statement.”
After Morton Grove, Illinois became the first city in the U.S. to ban gun ownership, Kennesaw became the first city to mandate it, sparking national news headlines.
A 1982 New York Times opinion piece described Kennesaw officials as “jovial” toward the law’s passage, but noted that this was not the case with “Yankee criminologists.”
Penthouse Magazine ran the story on its front page with the words “Gun Town USA: An American Town Where It’s Illegal Not to Own a Gun” printed above a picture of a bikini-clad blonde woman.
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 law was passed, Ferris said, its existence has largely faded from consciousness.
“I don’t know how many people even know the ordinance exists,” he said.
The same year that the gun control law came into effect, Mr. Weatherby, the church’s caretaker, was born.
He recalled a childhood in which his father half-jokingly told him, “I don’t care if you don’t like guns, that’s the law.”
“I was taught that to be a man you have to own a gun,” he said.
The now 42-year-old was 12 years old when he fired a gun for the first time.
“I almost dropped it because it scared me so much,” he said.
Mr Weatherby once owned over 20 guns but now said he no longer owns any. He sold them over the years – including the one his father left him when he died in 2005 – to get through hard times.
“I needed more gas than guns,” he said.
One place he could have sold his firearms is the Deercreek Gun Shop on Kennesaw’s Main Street.
James Rabun, 36, has worked at the gun shop since he graduated from high school.
It was the family business, he said, started by his father and grandfather, both of whom can still be found there today; His father was in the back restoring firearms, his grandfather in the front was relaxing in a rocking chair.
For obvious reasons, Mr. Rabun is a fan of Kennesaw’s gun laws. It’s good for business.
“The cool thing about guns,” he said with genuine enthusiasm, “is that people buy them for self-defense, but a lot of people like them like works of art or like Bitcoin — things that are scarce.”
Among the dozens of weapons hanging on the wall for sale are double-barreled black powder shotguns – similar to a musket – and a few 19th-century Winchester rifles that no longer exist.
In Kennesaw, gun fandom has a broad reach that extends beyond gun shop owners and middle-aged men.
Cris Welsh, a mother of two teenage daughters, is open about her gun ownership. She goes hunting, is a member of a shooting club and shoots at the local shooting range with her two girls.
“I’m a gun owner,” she admitted, listing her inventory, which includes “a Ruger carry pistol, a Baretta, a Glock and about a half-dozen shotguns.”
However, Ms. Welsh is not enthusiastic about Kennesaw’s gun laws.
“I feel embarrassed when I hear people talking about gun laws,” Ms. Welsh said. “It’s just an old Kennesaw thing to hold on to.”
She wishes that when outsiders think of the city, they would think of the parks, the schools and the values of the community — and not the gun laws “that make people uncomfortable.”
“Kennesaw has so much more to offer,” she said.
City Council member Madelyn Orochena agrees that the law is “something people would rather not promote.”
“It’s just a weird little fact about our community,” she said.
“Residents will either roll their eyes a little embarrassed or laugh about it.”
