The Georgia Court of Appeals is sending a Coweta County ordinance back to the drawing board.

On Tuesday, the court sided with Georgia Carry.org in its case against the county.

Last year, Coweta County passed an ordinance that prohibits firearms, air (or spring-loaded) rifles/pistols, fireworks, and any device firing or propelling a projectile in the county’s recreation facilities, sports fields, or any surrounding areas that are the property of the county.

The Coweta ordinance also stipulates that a violation shall be punished as a misdemeanor in the same manner as are other ordinances of the county with a fine of not more than $1,000 and a maximum term in the county jail of not more than six months.

The county was sued by resident Edward Stone and Georgiacarry.org, a gun rights advocacy group.

In the complaint filed in Coweta County Superior Court, the plaintiffs cited a section of the Official Code of Georgia 16-11-173 as one of the foundations for the lawsuit.

In section (b)(1) the code reads:

”No county or municipal corporation, by zoning or by ordinance, resolution, or other enactment, shall regulate in any manner gun shows; the possession, ownership, transport, carrying, transfer, sale, purchase, licensing, or registration of firearms or components of firearms; firearms dealers; or dealers in firearms components.”

Coweta County answered the complaint in late February by maintaining its ordinance is not pre-empted by the state statute.

But the Georgia Court of Appeals disagreed.

“In construing this statute, we are mindful of the "golden rule" of statutory construction, which requires that we follow the literal language of the statute unless doing so "’produces contradiction, absurdity or such an inconvenience as to insure that the legislature meant something else.’ And the plain language of the statute expressly precludes a county from regulating ‘in any manner [the] . . . carrying . . . of firearms.’ Under these circumstances, the preemption is express, and the trial court erred in concluding otherwise,” said Judge John Ruffin in the unanimous opinion.