Reversal Issued By Georgia Supreme Court On Open Carry Ban At Atlanta Botanical Garden
BY Herschel Smith
5 years, 2 months ago
It’s an odd case, but interesting.
Dawsonville attorney John Monroe—a founder, board member and corporate officer of GeorgiaCarry who represents Evans—said he is confident that a careful review of the garden’s lease with the city will make it clear that the garden is prohibited by state law from banning guns on its premises.
“We never argued it as a Second-Amendment issue,” said Monroe, who said he helped to write the 2014 amendment that forms the basis for the high court’s reversal. “It was really about an interpretation of state law. … The idea was, if you are going to lease public property, you should not have the same right that private property owners have to exclude firearms.”
Monroe said the 2014 amendment is in keeping with a separate state law barring cities and counties from introducing or enforcing their own gun regulations.
GeorgiaCarry sued the botanical garden five years ago after one of its members twice visited the venue in 2014 while openly carrying a gun in a holster on his waistband. On his second visit, police escorted member Phillip Evans from the premises. GeorgiaCarry subsequently filed suit challenging the garden’s gun ban. A Fulton County judge dismissed the case, but the high court reversed, claiming the dismissal was improper.
I’d never thought about this before, but it makes perfect sense. Someone who leases property doesn’t own the property, and therefore doesn’t have the right to forbid perfectly constitutional and legal activities on that property. Only the owner does.
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On October 8, 2019 at 11:27 am, Fred said:
Gun Owners are the new Negro.
TN goes a step further but specifically to multi-family tenant dwellings (read: apartments, mostly) where the property owner can’t ban gun owners as a class of renters just like they can’t ban blacks. The law is not predicated upon the fact that the need for defense is no more a variable that one can control than the color of skin that one is born with but it should be.
And there is your inherent right to defense, but, God demands defense of self and family/clan/tribe/Nation but does not demand that one be of a certain color of skin. Every time somebody wants to ban guns they are demanding that you violate your standing with God but also they are trying to violate your civil rights and make you as a new class of Negro servants.
Honorable men don’t enslave their fellows. You have zero duty to comply with any gun control whatsoever.
On October 8, 2019 at 12:22 pm, Frank Clarke said:
“Someone who leases property … doesn’t have the right to forbid perfectly constitutional and legal activities on that property. Only the owner does.”
Unless the owner is ‘government’, in which case even the owner doesn’t have the power (not right — governments don’t have rights).
I think the same argument could be made about corporations, the existence of which is due entirely to a government charter. A charter-issuer cannot (logically) grant to a charter-recipient more power than the issuer possesses. If you so badly desire to forbid guns on corporate property it will cost you your limited liability protection. You cannot both limit your own liability and deny me my rights.
On October 8, 2019 at 1:21 pm, Herschel Smith said:
@Frank,
That’s why the attorney argued this under the 2A.
On October 9, 2019 at 2:17 pm, Joe A said:
Minnesota has a law that’s much the reverse of that: the owner of jointly occupied property cannot ban guns, only the individual tenants can. I.e. the shopping mall can’t post, but each individual merchant can.
On October 10, 2019 at 10:00 am, Phillip Evans said:
Thank you, Herschel. It’s nice after five years to finally get victory in general, as most leases of state and local public property in use for the public does not grant ownership rights to the lessee. Specifically for the Atlanta Botanical Garden, we will need to wait for a judge to rule on the lease or have the Garden concede to save time and money.
I’m frankly shocked, but very appreciative that all participating Justices ruled in my favor. They reversed both Fulton Superior Court and the Georgia Court of Appeals.
This is a win for strengthening state preemption, and for especially upholding our liberty and human right of self-defense.
On October 10, 2019 at 7:13 pm, Phillip Evans said:
Please see my victory article here: https://pursuitofpatriotism.blogspot.com/2019/10/atlanta-botanical-garden-gun-rights.html