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The general counsel of a Georgia organization dedicated to unfettered gun rights has filed two more lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the state's weapons carry law. 

While  U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ponders Dawsonville attorney John Monroe's  effort on behalf of a member of GeorgiaCarry.Org to suspend a state law requiring a license to carry a handgun in public, Monroe on Thursday filed a second federal lawsuit seeking to permanently bar enforcement of that law as a Second Amendment infringement. 

John Monroe (Courtesy photo)

Monroe filed the second suit on behalf of a Cherokee County woman, whom he said is a member of two other gun rights groups — the Second Amendment Foundation in Bellevue, Washington, and the California-based Firearms Policy Coalition.

The  new federal suit, which names Kemp and Cherokee County Probate Judge Keith Wood as defendants, has been assigned to Jones' Northern District of Georgia colleague, Judge J.P. Boulee. 

Monroe, who is also GeorgiaCarry's vice president, also filed a third suit Monday on behalf of another GeorgiaCarry member in Hall County Superior Court in Gainesville. The state case also challenges the constitutionality of the weapons carry license law and its application by the probate judges. That suit names the governor and Hall County Probate Judge Patty Laine as defendants.

U.S. District Steve Jones has taken the first suit—which names Gov. Brian Kemp and Fulton County Probate Judge Pinkie Toomer as defendants—under advisement after a teleconference on Wednesday.

Neither Wood nor Laine were available for comment. A spokeswoman for Attorney General Chris Carr, whose staff lawyers are representing the governor in the case before Jones, declined comment.

The suits stem from a recommendation by the state Council of Probate Judges to treat the issuance of new weapons carry licenses in Georgia as a nonessential court function that has been suspended while a statewide judicial emergency prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic remains in force. All three suits feature women as plaintiffs, which Monroe said was happenstance.

Monroe, who has already sought a temporary restraining order to suspend the law, told Jones during Wednesday's teleconference that he was not challenging the law's legality, just its application during the pandemic.

But on Thursday, after the Washington and California gun groups contacted him, Monroe sued to abolish the Georgia law.

The Second Amendment Foundation has already sued to end New Jersey's ban on the sale of guns and ammunition during the pandemic emergency. The California coalition also has filed suits in California and New Mexico challenging the closure of gun retail stores and shooting ranges. 

Monroe said he is not using the pandemic as a vehicle for abolishing one of Georgia's few remaining laws regulating guns. Rather, he contended, "The government has taken advantage of the pandemic" to tread on gun owners' constitutional rights.

Monroe said Cherokee County resident Lisa Walters' carry license expired in January. He said she decided to renew her license after the statewide judicial emergency was put in place.  Monroe said he doesn't know why Walters didn't renew her carry license before the emergency was declared.

Monroe said that plaintiff Anna Cummings, a Hall County resident, has owned a handgun "for a while," but "had never felt the need" for a weapons carry license before. He said Cummings, who works for a beverage distributor, now wants to carry her handgun in public where she is not permitted to do so without a license.