GrammarGirl via Flickr / Wikimedia Commons

From KGVO and AP, we learn that the infamous city council of Missoula, Montana, voted eight to three in favor of two bans on legally owned guns in public places.

Both of the bans outlaw the possession of firearms at all polling places, parks, schools, museums, libraries and city council chambers. The first is an ’emergency’ ordinance, effective immediately, and additionally includes a clause banning guns in “any other locations of public assembly where persons gather together to conduct and/or administer any public election while election-related activities are taking place.”

This first ordinance will last 90 days. The second, follow-up policy makes the ban permanent and takes effect after 30 days. Previously, weapons and explosives were prohibited in public school buildings and in the City Hall only. The penalty for violating the ordinances is a $500 fine with no jail time listed as a punishment.

Speaking in favor of the bans, local pastor Jean Larson, allegedly affiliated with Moms Demand Action, said:

“I urge you to pass this amendment, to make all the citizens of Missoula safe as we go to the polls to vote. As we enjoy our public parks, and as we testify before you here.”

“Gun violence is a public health emergency in our country,” Larson also stated. “Ninety-five per day are killed with guns. We have a need and a right to be safe from this public health emergency.”

Michelle Kearny, a Missoula resident, delivered an eloquent statement against the ordinance:

“Unless the council has information that has not been shared with the public regarding imminent threats to citizens during voting activities or otherwise, I see no need for this emergency ordinance. I see it as yet another thinly veiled attempt to usurp our constitutional right as Americans, the right to keep and bear arms.

“I believe it’s unreasonable to restrict the constitutional rights of law abiding citizens who have completed training and testing to qualify for a concealed carry permit, on the basis that legally carried weapons, especially legally concealed carried weapons might pose a greater threat to the voting or general public. Quite simply, the facts state otherwise.”

A number of CCW license holders and gun owners also came out to speak before the vote.

“I have grandchildren who I would be afraid to be at a park not knowing that there was somebody there would could come to their aid immediately,” said one woman. “I’m sorry, but our police are spread way too thin as it is.”

Julie Armstrong, a councilwoman who voted against both amendments, called the ban “totally unenforceable.” Referring to lawful gun carriers, Armstrong also said, “I feel strongly that this is the group we want to support. We want to have them on our side.”

Unfortunately, neither she nor the other two council members (Michelle Cares and Jesse Ramos) were able to convince the other eight to vote against these gun bans.

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70 COMMENTS

        • Because everything done by the most Californicated city council in Montana is automatically the President’s fault.

        • Hopefully Trump energized the real Americans living in Missoula to vote out the anti-gun crowd. They are coming like locusts from places like CA to be free from the unbearable conditions they voted for. They trash the next state and then move on. I live in AZ and the state has gone from red to purple, next it’ll be blue and unrecognizable from the state I grew up in.

      • Man, I hate it that they have to throw in the 60% of gun deaths due to suicide to pump up the numbers. Most people would not know that is the actual count.

    • The do, but local governments can apply certain laws:
      45-8-351. Restriction on local government regulation of firearms.
      “(2) (a) For public safety purposes, a city or town may regulate the discharge of rifles, shotguns, and handguns. A county, city, town, consolidated local government, or other local government unit has power to prevent and suppress the carrying of concealed or unconcealed weapons to a public assembly, publicly owned building, park under its jurisdiction, or school, and the possession of firearms by convicted felons, adjudicated mental incompetents, illegal aliens, and minors.”

      That is from a TAG posting.

      • power to prevent and suppress the carrying of concealed or unconcealed weapons to a public assembly, publicly owned building, park under its jurisdiction, or school,

        That, by definition, is NOT a strong preemption. It’s a rather useless one IMO.

      • CNN and MSNBC just received a call from George Soro’$! They want all Liberal TROLLs to return back to Troll head quarters before the New Communist Revolution!

      • Ending with a preposition is completely proper in English. But not in Latin. Many years ago a bunch of blue-haired, no-lipped busybodies with no authority to do so and without being asked decided English should conform to Latin. Because reasons.

    • sad to see stuff like this emerging in such a pro-gun state…clearly, these people are everywhere…

    • They are thinking of the criminals…. How do you expect the criminals to feel safe, if there are armed law abiding citizens?

    • Because in, and I use this term loosely, “leftists minds” anyone who doesn’t think the way that they do automatically is a criminal.

  4. Some people learn by reading, some by observation. Others have to piss on the electric fence for themselves. The Missoula council (8 of them anyway) obviously fall into the later category.

  5. Man the West is going to he!! My dad went there in 1926(he’d be 112)Truly wild then. This sux…

    • My grandfather’s brother mapped what’s now Glacier NP in 1890 and has a pass named after him. He would think that the modern-day libtard was an alien from another planet.

    • 99% OF ALL COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY (I REALLY DON’T GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOU WANT TO CALL IT) PROFESSORS HAVE BEEN SCREWING UP OUR YOUNG PEOPLE FOR A LONG, LONG TIME!

  7. https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/mt/missoula/crime

    The opening to the rather heated summary: “With a crime rate of 59 per one thousand residents, Missoula has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes – from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One’s chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 17. Within Montana, more than 95% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Missoula.”

    Wow, the most liberal city in Montana has the most crime in Montana. Who’da thunk?

    But even taking that into account, Missoula’s murder rate? 0.

    Thanks to the city council for taking a strong stand against the wave of homicide.

  9. “Thinley veiled”…they violated the 2nd Amendment and their oath of office. That is treason. “moms demand action”, we need to give them some action. Next time it will be, “there might be the wrong people voting, so, let’s just pop a few into reeducation camps, just until we can get all of the illegals in to vote a few times, you know, just ’til they get the “hang” of it”. This is so wrong in so many ways. Aren’t there laws preventing this kind of thing being done just before an election? This is what happens when 3rd rate actors and writers, 2nd rate, washed up, Parrot head millionaire musicians and their trust fund parasite fans move in. They’ve ruined the whole thing. We might be building the wall in the wrong place. -30-

    • The “fruits” are okay. It’s the nuts and flakes that give the place a bad name. Last summer we vacationed at a dude ranch northeast of Missoula. I asked the ranch people about the town. They replied that it’s an anomaly not typical of Montana.

      • “an anomaly not typical of Montana.”

        That is about the biggest understatement I’ve ever heard. Montana is a state where you can legally shoot in an unincorporated Township so long as it’s in a safe direction. One of my LGS’s will let you try out a suppressor out the back of the shop, and it sits in the business district of my town. From where I’m sitting now there are 6 gun shops and 4 gun makers within five miles, not to mention the pawnshops. I know a pretty diverse group of people, and every single one that lives here in Montana is a gun owner.

  13. Transplanted Californians in action, probably. That and the lib/progressive influence of the university. Montana is one of the last places I thought I’d see this happen. Is anybody going to file a lawsuit seeking a restraining order on these laws?

  14. If someone is going to murder you with a bomb or firearm while you vote, a few words on a paper from 8 people is not going to keep you safe. Why would a terrorist decide not to commit their attack after 8 people said don’t bring his means of destruction? What those 8 people decided to do is stop law abiding Americans from having the means of self defense against any terrorist attempting to interfere with elections. They are taking away one right while you try to exercise another and claim it’s for your safety. It’s as if they think a particular group is going to be uncivil.

    • Nah, what they decided to do was “try”. Would you pay any attention to their silliness? I sure would not.

  15. This is typical of the Missoula city council. The town has become the Santa Monica of Montana. When I got close to that age, I considered retiring in western Montana and began reading the online edition of the Missoula newspaper. A company with a chain of hardware(?) stores proposed opening one in Missoula. It would have brought new jobs and tax revenue to the city. The council insisted on a “living wage” for employees and full benefits. The company replied that they would offer a compensation competitive with other local businesses. That wasn’t sufficiently politically correct to satisfy the council. The company canceled plans for the new store. After learning about the fiasco, I abandoned thoughts of retiring there.

    • Most of W MT is pretty good. In the town I spend half the year in, the local Justice of the Peace runs a tactical shooting school as a sideline. He, of course, carries concealed (it helps that his classes are used by a lot of the locals to get their CCW licenses). Apparently, most of the county commissioners, as well as the district court judges also have concealed carry permits – which mostly just let you carry within the city limits, since you don’t need a license to carry concealed outside the city limits.

      Several years back I discovered a used bookstore in Kallispell that has a sign on the front door that indicates that there are guns on the premises. The owner is often openly armed, but the first time in there cautioned that he was fine with open carry there, but you need a concealed carry permit to carry w/I the city limits.

      Also, in Kalispell, one of the sporting goods stores had a 10 mm handgun display, with maybe 8 guns on display. Never seen that before, but they are pretty close to Glacier, so they see a lot of demand for bear guns. I had asked about the difference between a Glock G20 and a G20SF, plus a G40. He pulled out each for me to handle. Bought a Gen 4 G20, then asked about bear ammo. The Buffalo Bore was out of stock, but I was able to pick up a couple boxes of comparable solid cast. Plus, of course, some self defense ammo.

  16. There’s no place else to go. If our side keeps playing nice, it’s over in the long run. Eventually,someone will have to be put up against the wall, as Jefferson said

  17. “Gun violence is a public health emergency in our country,” Larson also stated.

    Really? 99.99997% of the population will *not* die of a gunshot wound today and 67% of those who do will have inflicted it upon themselves.

    This trope that we live in the midst of an epidemic of gun related violence is getting ridiculous.

  18. Goddamn Californians. First they ruined California, then Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Now they’re invading Montana, Idaho and fu(|=!ng Texas.

    • I keep telling folks. You can run from CA but you’ll just be exhausted when they catch and bugger you. The battle for the future of our country is being fought in CA. The cowards formed the ‘just move’ crowd and are now hiding in their supposed free states waiting to shit themselves at the first sight of a CA license plate.

    • …would it be possible to require transplants to spend 4-5 years living somewhere before establishing residency in a state?

      It seems like giving californians time to acclimate to local conditions before they have a say in public policy might at least slow down the californication effect.

      • I was thinking the same, recently. A state constitutional amendment requiring proof of 5 years of property tax payments before you can register to vote in state or local elections, or something like that. Actually I’d like 10 years better. And I’m an immigrant!! It was a long time ago, but I don’t think I’d have even complained about voting federal only from 1972-1982. And if you complain, you can leave.

  19. Colion Noir recently stated people moving out of California are like a syphilis spreading and infecting the state of Texas. He didn’t say all the people moving out of California. But he did say most of them. And I believe he is correct. I have met people from my former home state. I consider them to be Invaders. They do not support the culture here. They are here to make trouble.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt86jSbJwoI

    • Culture changes law.

      A mostly white state does not stop the culture from being changed, thus the law as well. Oregon and Washington are going down in flames because of white people who have an anti American culture. It sucks the minorities are highly outnumbered and cannot rely on the government to save them from the hordes of NPCs.

      California shits out a bunch of Joe Rogans with even less life experience. They have such a huge pile it roles down to the rest of the country. Americans couldn’t stop the European settlers from taking over middle America, now middle America can’t stop Californians from taking it over. If you sit around waiting for them to come to you, they will already be half way to victory.

  20. One wonders if rascist groups like antifa will take advantage of this. One can’t help but wonder if some of these types will try to intimidate voters or prevent people from voting.

  21. Stop the autoplay video ads. Not nice on mobile devices as it uses A LOT of mobile data capacity.

    Or even a better idea. Reactivate the MOBILE version of the page you used to have!

    • Far as I can tell, HTML5 ads will download regardless of you not clicking on it. It used to be flash ads that you could block easily, now it’s much harder to deal with ads when they use HTML5 video. Probably was Google’s intention…

  22. How many times have these idiots been threatened by law abiding citizen packing heat at such public place?
    How many times nutjobs and criminals came to the conclusion “screw your gun free zone”?

    Because we all know someone who is about to commit a murder and act of terrorism, will back up knowing the place he/she picked is “gun free”. What a sad joke!

  23. What does this sound like to me….A “non-firearms owning person from a Socialist, Liberal-Progessive, Eastern Bloc Utopian Police-State…” A place where all the residents were informed by one of their state representatives that there is NO 2nd Amendment Right in our state to have weapons or firearms. But a barely tolerated privilege ALLOWED by the DemoCommie/RINO Politicians and Left-wing Law Enforcement Community. Which is overzealousy enforced through very strict control. Many hurdles, requirements, and police permissions to attain. With lots of local police discouragement…Now what does this sound like to me…Sounds to me like the Town Father’s and Mommy’s are planning ahead for ” Martial Law!?”

  24. So I say AGAIN…How far is too far…The Bill of Rights to OUR US Constitution are being whittled away….Are we going to just sit here and let it happen…Is anyone really going to step up to the home plate and lead a solid fight against this creeping incrementalism of authoritarianism and tyranny under the disguise of Public Safety…?!

  25. Now here is the really STUPID PART Hunting Season opened October 6 for antelope and October 20th for Deer and Elk. So if you are going hunting or returning from hunting you could be charged Just for stopping to vote on your way out of town

  26. Nice of coucil to let the nutjobs know where they can go to shoot people without fear of those folks being armed! Apparently libs don’t know that no law can be enforced until it is violated!

  27. Sorry folks, it is not about gun control, it is about control of how you do everything. It is someone else wanting to tell you what to do and say. If they ever get rid of the Second Amendment, the First will be next.

  29. Has nothing to do with crime or safety, obviously. They are probably just hoping it dissuades a few profreedom people from voting.

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