Federal Court Dismisses Airport Case (Lawsuit to bloc Atlanta airport's illegitimate antigun law)

GEORGIACARRY.ORG website ^ | 09/26/08 | staff writer

[epow]

U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob granted the City of Atlanta’s motion for judgment on the pleadings and dismissed GCO’s lawsuit against the city over whether the city may arrest GFL holders for carrying guns in the unsecure areas of the Atlanta airport. In his order, Judge Shoob found that HB 89 does not apply to the Airport and thus state law continues to criminalize carrying a firearm in the Airport. GCO intends to appeal the order, which may be read here.

[epow]

This year the Georgia State Assembly passed and the Governor signed a revised version of the state law on carrying guns in GA. The revision repealed the preceding gun law's prohibition of licensed gun carriers carrying guns in restaurants that serve alcohol, ON ALL FORMS OF PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION WHERE EVER GUNS ARE NOT PROHIBITED BY FEDERAL LAW, and several other improvements. The relevant clause of the revised law recognizes that federal law does not prohibit guns in the non-secure areas of an airport, which means the airport lobby and airport parking lots are NOT off limits to guns under federal law. The Atlanta mayor and the airport manager threw a public temper tantrum and declared that anyone caught carrying a gun on their person or in their vehicle on airport property would be arrested and charged with a crime. The state representative who sponsored the bill in the General Assembly filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the airport from enforcing an illegitimate local law, but the suit was dismissed Friday by a fanatically anti-gun Federal judge on the grounds that the Atlanta gun law is enforceable under a vaguely worded circa 1900 AD section of GA's gun laws that prohibits carrying weapons at "public gatherings" Only a few such gatherings such as sporting events and voting places are specified in the poorly written law, leaving the interpretation up to the courts which have handed down a great many conflicting decisions over the last 100 years regarding what kind of assemblage the term "public gathering" encompasses. GA's state preemption law plainly says that the General Assembly has precedence over all local gun laws and in effect nullifies any and all city or county gun laws, but the judge apparently dismissed that state preemption law along with the lawsuit.

The appellants have filed an appeal in a higher Federal court, but I don't expect anything but more anti-gun decisions from any court. The only way to get this outrage settled will be for the Assembly to revise the gun law again and and also reinforce the preemption law in no uncertain terms so that even a radically antigun judge can't get away with misinterpreting it. But unless and until next year's legislative session emphatically and unequivocally establishes the principle that state gun laws take precedence over local gun laws, we are probably stuck with the antigun judge's ruling that makes licensed gun carriers into criminals according to local laws made by local officials who are are themselves in violation of state preemption law by any reasonable interpretation.

[FreeRadical]

If they don’t have a metal detector, I don’t have a gun.

[epow]

In the last paragraph of the judge's order he makes the absurd statement that the Atlanta airport property and the building's non-secure area doesn't qualify as public transportation, and therefore isn't covered by the revised law that removed the prohibition of guns on public transportation. HUH?? What is the airport if it's not an integral part of a public transportation facility, a privately owned and operated air travel agency?

There is no valid argument against the FACT, as sworn to by the legislator who steered the bill through the General Assembly, that the Assembly intended both by unmistakable implication and in accord with common sense for HB89 to apply to the necessary parking and entrance areas immediately adjacent to the secure areas and the actual planes.

If the revised law was not intended to cover those areas, why would the lawmakers cover every other public transportation facility in GA except the non-secure public areas and parking lots of the city owned and (mis)managed Atlanta airport?

It will be interesting to see what bizarre reasoning a future court can come up with to try to justify invalidating the next revision of that law which hopefully the Assembly will use to clarify the last revision and also to rebut the tortured logic of the judge in Friday's dismissal order.

[epow]

Oh they have plenty of metal detectors and other equipment, plus a passel of rude, officious, incompetent, poorly trained, so-called “security” personnel to attempt to operate them when they happen not to be harassing a 90 year old great-grandmother in a wheelchair.

[FreeRadical]

I thought this case was about carry rights in the non-secure areas of the airport? Are you saying they have metal detectors even before you get to the TSA secured area?

[Turbopilot]

Have faith. The judge who dismissed the suit is a senile nutcase who’s been overturned countless times by the 11th Circuit.

The 11th Circuit actually has some reasonable judges on it who are willing to interpret the law as written, and not create contorted legal reasoning out of whole cloth to support preconceived notions. The appeal will succeed.

[epow]

No, not at all. I should have made that clear, the detection devices are located at the entrance point to the secure area just like in all US airports.

[epow]

I hope and pray you’re right Turbopilot, I have had it up to my eyeballs with judges who twist and squeeze the clear intent of a law or a part of the Constitution they don’t like until it fits their biased viewpoint, and completely ignore the clearly expressed intention of it’s authors.