Kennesaw, Georgia has all the amenities of a small town in the American South.

The aroma of cookies baking wafts from Honeysuckle Cookies Bakery, along with the rumble of a nearby train. It’s the kind of coffee shop where newlyweds leave handwritten thank you cards praising the “homely” atmosphere.

But there’s another aspect of Kennesaw that might surprise some — city laws from the 1980s requiring residents to legally own guns and ammunition.

“It’s not like the Wild West with it hanging on your hip and walking around,” said Derek Easterling, the town’s three-term mayor and a self-described “retired Navy guy.”

“We’re not going to knock on your door and say, ‘Show me your weapons.'”

Kennesaw’s gun laws clearly state: “In order to safeguard and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its residents, every head of household residing within the city limits must possess a firearm and ammunition.”

Residents with mental or physical disabilities, felony convictions or conflicting religious beliefs are exempt from the law.

To the knowledge of Mayor Easterling and various local officials, there have been no prosecutions or arrests for violations of Article II, Section 34-21, which took effect in 1982.

No one the BBC spoke to could reveal what the penalties would be if found to have breached the rules.

However, the mayor insisted: “This is not a symbolic law. I don’t like show-offs.”

For some, the law is a source of pride and recognition of the city’s embrace of gun culture.

For others, it’s a source of embarrassment, a page in a chapter of history they hope to transcend.

But the townspeople’s main belief in gun laws is that they keep Kennesaw safe.

A customer eating pepperoni slices at a local pizza place advises: “If there’s a problem, criminals need to worry because if they break into your home and you’re there, they don’t know what you’re getting.”

There were no murders in 2023, but there were two gun suicides, according to the Kennesaw Police Department.

Blake Weatherby, groundskeeper at Kennesaw First Baptist Church, has a different perspective on the reasons for the lower violent crime rate.

“It’s the attitude behind the guns in Kennesaw that inhibits gun crime, not the guns themselves,” Mr. Weatherby said.

“Whether it’s a gun, a fork, a fist or a high-heeled shoe, it doesn’t matter. We protect ourselves and our neighbors.”

Pat Ferris, who joined the Kennesaw City Council in 1984, two years after the law passed, said the law was intended “more as a political statement.”

After Morton Grove, Illinois, became the first city in the United States to ban gun ownership, Kennesaw became the first city to require gun ownership, sparking national headlines.

A 1982 New York Times opinion piece said Kennesaw officials were “pleased” with the law’s passage but noted that “Yankee criminologists” were not.

Penthouse magazine ran the story on its cover, which featured a photo of a blonde in a bikini and the words “Guntown, U.S.A.: The American town where it’s illegal not to own a gun.”

At least five cities have passed similar gun laws, including Gun Barrel City, Texas, and Virgin, Utah.

Mr. Ferris said that in the 40 years since Kennesaw’s gun laws were passed, its existence has largely faded from people’s consciousness.

“I don’t know how many people know this ordinance exists,” he said.

The church groundskeeper Mr Weatherby was born the same year the gun laws came into force.

He recalled his father telling him, only half-jokingly, as a child: “I don’t care if you don’t like guns, it’s the law.”

“I was taught that if you were a man, you had to have a gun,” he said.

Now 42, he first fired a gun when he was 12 years old.

“I almost dropped it because it scared me,” he said.

Mr Weatherby, who at one point owned more than 20 guns, said he now has none. Over the years, he sold them – including a set left to him when his father died in 2005 – to get through difficult times.

“I need gas more than a gun,” he said.

One of the places he could go to sell guns was the Deercreek Gun Shop on Kennesaw Avenue.

James Rabun, 36, has been working in gun stores since graduating from high school.

He said it was a family business, run by his father and grandfather, who can still be found there. His father was repairing guns in the back, and his grandfather was resting in a rocking chair in front.

For obvious reasons, Mr. Raben is a champion of Kennesaw gun laws. This is good for business.

“The cool thing about guns,” he enthuses, “is that people buy them for self-defense, but a lot of people like them like art or Bitcoin—things that are scarce.”

Dozens of weapons for sale hang on the walls, including double-barreled black powder shotguns (similar to rifles) and some “they don’t make these anymore” Winchester rifles from the 1800s.

In Kennesaw, gun aficionados reach far and wide, beyond gun store owners and middle-aged men.

Cris Welsh, a mother of two teenage daughters, has made no secret of her gun ownership. She hunts, is a member of a gun club, and shoots at the local shooting range with her two daughters.

“I’m a gun owner,” she admitted, listing her inventory, which included “a Ruger, a Baretta, a Glock and about six shotguns.”

Ms. Wales, however, is not a fan of Kennesaw’s gun laws.

“I feel embarrassed when I hear people talk about gun laws,” Ms. Wales said. “It’s just an old thing in Kennesaw that deserves to be preserved.”

She hopes that when outsiders think of the city, they think of parks, schools and community values ​​rather than “uncomfortable” gun laws.

“There’s a lot more to Kennesaw,” she said.

City Council member Madelyn Orochena agreed the law is “something people would rather not advertise.”

“It’s just a weird little fact about our community,” she said.

“Residents either rolled their eyes in shame or laughed it off.”