I wish they would've come down like this on the kid (now an adult) with the pellet gun that shot out several panes of my bay window one Christmas (a subdivision in Augusta/30906). Over $300 worth of damage and a neighbor told me he was shooting at my cat who was INSIDE the house on the window sill. I found the pellets ACROSS the whole living room, and one pellet was behind a recently purchased but now broken Christmas snow globe. The neighbor said he had shot from across the street and one house over, quite a distance. It's a good thing none of my children were in that room or there might have been injuries and I would have been a lot angrier. A couple of years later I introduced myself to his dad and rather than offering to have his son pay for the damage, all he could say was good, now I have some leverage, he just shot up my side door today for no reason! (The shooter was no longer a minor then). I didn't press it, despite the fact that sum ruined our Christmas the year it happened, since I figured this guy was at his wits end with his son already. What a shame. I hope he eventually learned to hold his son accountable for his actions.

A totally different circumstance. This situation is as Thauch described it; a total boneheaded overreaction by the police.

OCGA (16-11-133) defines a firearm.
Firearms are defined in Georgia as; any handgun, rifle, shotgun, stun gun, taser, or other weapon which will or can be converted to shoot or expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or electrical charge.

A BB gun discharges AIR and are NOT a Firearm.
BB guns may be purchased without a background check.
BB guns can legally be used by children, a firearm can not.

However, Liberal Nanny PC minded cities can pass ordinances restricting ownership to adults and their use inside their city limits.

I hope he wins and puts Grovetown in their place now, before they something even dumber.

... in the form of our Reich council. Shut up and obey, peasants!

You live in a neighborhood with a lot of awful, borderline people. Leave it and move west or north. You can still go to the same church and have the same friends but you don't have to put up with troglodytes and others with violent and predatory tendencies. There aren't nearly as many safe places to live in 30906 today as there were even 10 years ago, so move. Really.

Even Grovetown would be better.

I hope the judge makes Grovetown pay Mr. Ussery's legal fees.

Valerie Rowell wrote:

Ac­cording to a city ordinance, spring-loaded, black powder or compressed air guns are considered firearms.

Spring-loaded guns are considered firearms? Aren't those the guns that shoot the little plastic darts with the rubber suction cups on them used by children for many decades? Do they even make them any more? Did Congress ban them? How does the 2nd Amendment work for plastic, spring-loaded, suction-cup dart guns?

Thanks for reminding us of that, RM. It's just another example of why one should never answer questions of police officers. Even if the question seems innocuous, it can come back to bite you. Our constitutional right to remain silent is the right most ignored in our country today.

RM, are you messing with us? Did you give yourself that thumbs down? I can assure you it was not I.

Guys the problem is not GA code on firearms - Grovetown's own ordinance is what he is being ticketed for.

Counties (sadly) are still given some leeway in ordinances not defined by the state, or in this case, a complete contradiction. But makes good ammo for the lawyer.

So the question now goes to the residents of Grovetown - why are you not up in arms over your tax dollars being spent on this case? It should have been dismissed with a letter of apology and the city council moving to strike and obviously bloated ordinance from the county books.

it was confiscated because the terrible weapon was used in the commission of a crime.. the crime of an overbearing city government exerting its totalitarian force upon an innocent young man..