News from Georgia.

Georgians would be able to carry firearms without a permit under controversial legislation the Republican-controlled state Senate passed Monday.

Supporters said Senate Bill 319, which passed 34-22 along party lines, wouldn’t change state laws governing who can possess guns or where they can carry them.

“This law is simply to remove an unnecessary burden from law-abiding citizens,” said Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, the bill’s chief sponsor. “Criminals do not care about a carry permit.”

[ … ]

Senators defeated an amendment introduced by Sen. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek, to require background checks of Georgians seeking to buy firearms in private transactions, including at gun shows or flea markets.

Good.  It’s good that they shot down that amendment, and it looks like constitutional carry will pass into law this year in Georgia.  The governor (who is a putz trying to position himself for reelection) has committed to sign it.

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.

AJC.com:

The content of HB 60, the omnibus gun bill passed by the Legislature last Thursday, is finally available online and in hard copy at the state Capitol.

Two areas are likely to spark some controversy. First, there’s a requirement that holders of concealed weapons permits must have that license on their persons when they carry. Which is immediately followed by the caveat that cops aren’t allowed to stop anyone solely to check for that permit:

(a) Every license holder shall have his or her valid weapons carry license in his or her immediate possession at all times when carrying a weapon, or if such person is exempt from having a weapons carry license pursuant to Code Section 16-11-130 or subsection (c) of Code Section 16-11-127.1, he or she shall have proof of his or her exemption in his or her immediate possession at all times when carrying a weapon, and his or her failure to do so shall be prima-facie evidence of a violation of the applicable provision of Code Sections

(b) A person carrying a weapon shall not be subject to detention for the sole purpose of investigating whether such person has a weapons carry license.

Howard Sills, sheriff of Putnam County, noted the language as the bill passed last week:

“Then there is one sentence, and it destroys everything, ” Sills said.

That one sentence says police may not detain anyone to demand to see a weapons permit. That means, Sills said, that if someone is walking down the street late at night with a pistol stuck in his waistband, police may not stop him and ask to see his weapons permit.

I don’t have much to say about this except notice the sleight of hand by the CLEO.  What the proposed law says is that you must have your permit with you, and then they made it clear that there will be no “stop and identify” authority.

As it is now, Georgia is a stop and identify state (with some form of law intended for loitering).  They are undoing that.  That has no bearing on the issue of permits, and the CLEO knows it.  He knows that he told a lie when he said one sentence “destroys everything.”