The were partially successful. Atlanta and Columbus passed restrictions that were pretty much on handgun control’s wish list. The GA general assembly passed preemption and invalidated those laws. The mayor of Columbus threatened to have their laws enforced regardless say “We like our gun control laws”. The Stare attorney general told him he could be sued ad he backed off. The Atl city council tried the same thing but were actually recorded stating that they knew it would violate state law. The were told that they would get into personal trouble if they continued and backed off.
And here is what the Ga State Supreme Court said in about a Ga ban on handguns in 1846.
19. * Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243, at 251 (1846).
“’The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.’ The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State.”