The Kennasaw Ordinance: A first-hand account

Note: Author’s name withheld by request.

Crime prevention backed up with a cure
American city keeps thugs moving. Why won’t Edmonton?

Canadian gun control laws are based on the liberal notion that crime would
be eliminated if there were no guns in private hands. For a small city in
Georgia, however, mandatory gun ownership has made violent crime
practically non-existant. Yet don’t tell our politicians and police
chiefs this
story–they are comfortably in control and that’s the way they like it.

The City of Kennesaw is located about a half-hour drive northwest of
Atlanta. With its close proximity to crime-ridden Atlanta and with two
interstate highways running through the community, one would assume it
would be a magnet for criminals of the worst type. To the contrary, in
fact,
and even the thugs will readily confess they know why. “It’s a question of
attitude. That is, that those who would commit crime should not bother,
just move on,” says Kennesaw Mayor John Haynie.

In 1982, Kennesaw adopted an ordinance amending the Code of Ordinances
which meant that most homeowners would be compelled by law to possess a
firearm for defensive purposes. The amendment stated that: “Every head of
household residing in the City Limits of the City of Kennesaw is required to
maintain a fire arm, together with ammunition therefore. Exempt from the
effect of
said ordnance are those heads of household who suffer a physical or mental
disability which would prohibit them from using such a fire arm. Further
exempt from the effect of said ordinance are those heads of household who
are paupers or who conscientiously oppose maintaining fire arms as a
result of belief or religious doctrine, or persons convicted of a felony.”

The root of this law can be found in the defence of Colonial America when
communities asserting independence from Britain required its citizens to
maintain a musket or rifle and six balls with powder at all times.
Indeed, Canadian history is complete with references to citizen soldiers
defending
the nation from perceived internal and external threats. The War of 1812,
Riel Rebellion, Northwest Rebellion, Mackenzie-Papineau Rebellion, the
Fenian Invasion and the Winnipeg General Strike are examples of when
ordinary citizens were armed by their nation to take up its quarrel.
Denying the nation’s history, Ottawa today would like guns only in the
hands of policemen and professional soldiers.

Stateside, the cause of the now-famous Kennesaw Ordnance was the move
introduced in 1981 by lawmakers in Morton Grove, Illinois to outlaw the
possession of handguns. With the flood of positive liberal media coverage
that followed this, the people of Kennesaw decided to create their own law
and get a few headlines for themselves. The Kennesaw Ordinance was warmly
welcomed within the community and media agencies from around the globe
converged on the small city to cover the story. By far, most reported
that the city had been taken over by gun-crazy rowdies, something akin to
“The
Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” or Dodge City.

In reality, Kennesaw does not advertise its firearms ownership. There are
no warning signs for visitors and there are no sentries patrolling the
streets. Criminals do not ply their trade in Kennesaw because of the
city’s reputation. As crime rose steadily in Morton Grove, Kennesaw
realized a
sudden drop in its crime rate. Business and residential burglaries, for
example, were immediately halved. The overall lack of crime in Kennesaw
has been steady since the inception of the ordinance.

Consider these low numbers: the Kennesaw Police Department reported that
between 1995 and 1997, there were only three armed robberies, two rapes,
no arsons, 33 auto thefts, 80 burglaries and 532 thefts. The 1996 figures
for the City of Edmonton paint a much worse picture. When the
populations of
the two cities are equal, the theft figures for the City of Champions are
twice that of Kennesaw; robbery, 28.9 times; murder, 20 times; assault,
4.3 times; sex related/rape, 13.9 times; break and enter, 4.2 times; auto
thefts, 4.3 times. Furthermore, Edmonton is not flanked by a metropolis
like Atlanta. *

Anti-gun figureheads everywhere have repeatedly presented three myths
about gun ownership, all of which having been dispelled by the Kennesaw
experience: First, that the easy access to firearms in the house will lead
to a rise in domestic gun violence. Since the passing of the law, not one
husband or wife has been killed late at night for coming into their house,
and there has been no incident where a handgun was used against a partner.
Second, that the easy access of firearms in the house will lead to an
increase in accidental injuries to children in the house. In reality, no
child has been injured in a gun accident since the law was passed. Part
of this success stems from proper gun safety training done by local police
officers themselves. The Kennesaw officers work one-on-one with the
citizens at the range. If the citizen does not own a firearm at the time
of training course, the police actually loan them one.

The third myth dispelled in Kennesaw is that the more guns available in an
area, the more violent crime. The last murder was in 1989, and that was
done with a knife. There have been no murders using a handgun since 1986.
Kennesaw’s low crime rate coincided with the doubling of the city’s
population from 1980 to the mid 1990′s. Thus, population increase and
easy access to firearms did not increase crime, domestic dispute and violent
crime, a fact inconceivable by the Ottawa elite.

Kennesaw continues to stick out like a sore thumb in a socialist run
America. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union have tried to
have the City’s ordinance quashed in the high courts. They were bitterly
disappointed when the law was recently upheld in the United States Supreme

Court. Mayor Haynie says the City’s law attracts queries from countries
as diverse as Japan, Germany, England, France, Sweden and Canada. He
estimates he grants two interviews per month on the subject. With the
lowest crime rate in Georgia and the sixth lowest rate in the entire country,
individuals and states want to know more about the law. “It is not the
Wild West
here,” Mayor Haynie tells them. “Is the law effective? Without a doubt.
Will
this law work everywhere? I can’t say, but I do know it works in Kennesaw.”

Note to editor: Firearms are spelled “fire arms” in the law. -The author
visited this city in 1997. *
Based on statistics supplied by Edmonton and Kennasaw Police Departments.
These figures
should be reverified as time goes on and are offered only as a snapshot of
the overall situation.

POSTSCRIPT:
Ask Professor Gary Mauser of Simon Fraser University if firearms have any
use in Canadian society and he will tell you that there is no doubt that
guns save lives. In three recent Canadian studies that correlate closely
to the findings of similar American studies (Kleck et al), Prof. Mauser and
others found that each year in Canada, firearms are used an average of
66,000 times to defend the user from either human or animal threats, and
more significantly, approximately 30,000 times annually to protect against
criminal violence threats. These reports, of course, were only those in
which the respondents admitted using a firearm. In his dissertation
entitled “Armed Self-Defense: The Canadian Case”, Prof. Mauser wrote that
firearms contribute significantly to public safety. “It is unknown how
many lives are actually saved, but if a life were saved in only 5% of these
incidents, then the private ownership of firearms would save more than
3,300 lives annually in Canada,” he claims.