Georgia Town Ordering Gun Ownership Undaunted by Massacre

[Purveyor]

Kennesaw, Georgia, is a quiet Atlanta suburb of newer subdivisions and strip malls around a huddle of older homes and storefronts. It is asking churches to ring their bells 26 times today for the victims of last week’s elementary school massacre in Connecticut.
And it has no plans to change a law requiring residents to own guns.

No town in the U.S. has been as public about its support for guns as Kennesaw, population about 30,000, where city leaders for 30 years have required that every household have at least one gun. The Dec. 14 killings of 20 children and six adults, the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, has done little to change that, residents say in interviews.

Most called President Barack Obama’s push to tighten gun restrictions worrisome at best and a conspiracy at worst, exemplifying resistance to such controls in the South.

“They’re trying to confiscate our guns,” said Dent Myers, 81, who wore a pistol on his hip and a red beret at his Wildman’s Civil War Surplus and Herb Shop. The store, draped in Confederate flags, is the most prominent business in Kennesaw’s two-block downtown.

MORE...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-21/georgia-town-ordering-gun-ownership-undaunted-by-massacre.html

[marmar]

1. Forced gun ownership? ..... But isn't this taking away people's 'freedoms'?

These people have me so confused.

[godai]

2. 'draped in Confederate flags' n/t

[spanone]

3. this country is out of it's fucking mind.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

4. I saw something about this on FB

went to the towns website and can't find any law stating people have to own guns..............

[Brainstormy]

5. I live in Kennesaw

and while it is true, and a source of much embarrassment, that Kennesaw does have this law on the books, the law excepts citizens who have moral objections or can't afford to buy a guy, so basically it simply says anybody who wants a gun can have one. It's so easy to get a gun in Georgia already that the law is just silly. I'm sure there are plenty, but I doubt that there are any more guns in Kennesaw than there are in the other surrounding suburbs of Atlanta. Where the article is inaccurate and insulting is in its tone. Like suggesting first that Wildman's "is the most prominent business in the two block downtown." I don't know the place but it makes Kennesaw sound like a tiny little redneck enclave. Again, we've got rednecks aplenty but the sprawling Town Center, a regional mall, with hundreds and hundreds of stores is a more "prominent" place to shop.
Our crime rate, already very low in what is now a bustling, affluent suburb, did not, however, go down as a result of the law.
http://progressivevalues.blogspot.com/2007/04/kennesaw-georgia-gun-violence-reduction.html

[RebelOne]

6. I lived in Kennesaw years ago.

Now I am in the adjoining town of Woodstock. But it is a known fact that Kennesaw has the lowest crime rate in Georgia.

[Brainstormy]

7. Actually, not

Not even in the top ten safest cities. And crime in Kennesaw, while still comparatively low, is on the rise.
http://www.cityrating.com/crime-statistics/georgia/kennesaw.html