A group that supports gun control filed suit Thursday against a north Georgia town that recently passed a law requiring gun ownership that it said is mostly symbolic. 
 
 The Washington-based Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed a federal lawsuit against the town of Nelson, about 50 miles north of Atlanta, claiming the law is unconstitutional. The suit contends the Second Amendment doesn't require anyone to have a gun, and government cannot require citizens to arm themselves. 
 
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 "Forcing residents to buy guns they do not want or need won't make the city of Nelson or its people any safer, and only serves to increase gun sales and gun industry profits," Jonathan Lowy of the Brady Center said in a statement. 
 
 City manager Brandy Edwards said town leaders had not seen the lawsuit and had no immediate comment. 
 
 Council members passed the ordinance April 1 requiring every head of household in the town of 1,300 to have a gun and ammunition, but there are exceptions. The law exempts anyone who opposes gun ownership or has certain disabilities. 
 
 City leaders said the law was mostly symbolic, isn't being enforced and includes no penalty. 
 
 Supporters of the law say light police patrols leave city residents virtually unprotected for most of the day. 
 
 The lawsuit contends violators are subject to a fine of as much as $1,000, but Edwards said that is incorrect. 
 
 Supporters of the law said they wanted to make a statement about gun rights at a time when President Barack Obama and others were seeking restrictions after the shooting that killed 20 children and six adults at an elementary school in Connecticut in December. 
 
 The proposed ordinance is similar to a law that passed in Kennesaw in 1982 and other towns in the U.S. have considered such measures. ||||| Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence 
 
 For Immediate Release 
 
 May 16, 2013 
 
 Contact: Media [at] BradyNetwork [dot] org 
 
 WASHINGTON, DC – The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence filed a lawsuit today against the City of Nelson, Georgia, alleging that its ordinance requiring residents to own an operable firearm and ammunition is unconstitutional. In the complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the Brady Center, joined by the firms of Covington & Burling LLP and Dow Lohnes PLLC, argues that the Nelson city ordinance, adopted April 1, 2013, violates citizens’ First, Second, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The suit was filed on behalf of membership of the Brady Center who face a $1,000 fine for non-compliance. 
 
 “Most Americans reject the gun lobby’s vision of an America in which the government can force guns into every sector of society,” said the Brady Center’s Legal Action Project Director Jonathan Lowy. “In this lawsuit we seek to establish that the government does not have the authority to compel Americans to buy guns or bring them into their homes In fact, while the Second Amendment gives law-abiding Americans the right to own a gun if they decide that’s the best way to ensure the safety of their homes and their families, the majority of Americans choose to protect their families by keeping guns out. This ordinance denies the people of Nelson that freedom. Forcing residents to buy guns they do not want or need won’t make the City of Nelson or its people any safer, and only serves to increase gun sales and gun industry profits. A gun brought into your home is far more likely to be used to injure or kill a family member, than to ward off an intruder.” 
 
 “The ordinance requires citizens to, in effect, salute the flag of gun ownership or explain why not,” said co-counsel Peter Canfield of Atlanta’s Dow Lohnes. “That’s unconstitutional.” 
 
 The complaint in Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence v. City of Nelson, further alleges that in adopting the ordinance, the City of Nelson violated city residents’ First Amendment right to free speech. The complaint argues that the ordinance forces citizens who are subject to one of the mandate’s exceptions for the mentally disabled, impoverished, and those who hold certain beliefs, to declare publicly their status or beliefs in order to opt out of the requirement, in violation of the First Amendment principle that freedom of speech includes the freedom not to speak. The complaint further alleges that the ordinance violates city residents’ fundamental right to privacy within the sanctity of their homes, and unconstitutionally discriminates between heads of household, who are required to own a gun, and non-heads of household, whose personal beliefs cannot provide a basis for an exception to the ordinance’s mandate. 
 
 The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the ordinance is unconstitutional and a permanent injunction against its enforcement. Counsel for the Brady Center are: Rukesh Korde, Jonathan Wakely, and Daniel Valencia of Covington & Burling LLP, of Washington, DC; Jonathan Lowy and Elizabeth Burke of the Brady Center; and Peter Canfield of Dow Lohnes PLLC of Atlanta. 
 
 For more information on the lawsuit, please contact the Brady Center at 202-289-7319. 
 
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 The mission of the Brady organization is to create a safer America for all of us that will lead to the dramatic reduction in gun deaths and injuries that we all seek. 
 
 Dan Gross is the President of the Brady Campaign and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. More information about Dan Gross is available here. 
 
 For more insight on gun violence prevention, follow our Facebook Page and Twitter Account.
– The tiny town of Nelson, Georgia, is facing a court battle after passing a law that requires all households to own a gun and ammunition. The DC-based Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence had filed a federal lawsuit against the town on the grounds that the law, which was passed in April, is unconstitutional, and violates the 1st and 14th Amendments, reports CNN. "Forcing residents to buy guns they do not want or need won’t make the City of Nelson or its people any safer, and only serves to increase gun sales and gun industry profits," said a spokesman in a statement. But town leaders say the law is largely symbolic, is not actually being enforced, and anyone who opposes gun ownership on moral or religious grounds can opt out, reports Fox News. Advocates of the law say it's more of a statement about the lax police protection offered to the 1,300-resident town, and a protest against the push toward stricter gun control at a federal level.