Montana Shooting Sports Association Takes Aim at State University Gun Bans
Montana –-(AmmoLand.com)- From the Great Falls Tribune:
The head of a prominent gun-rights group is mulling whether to challenge a firearms ban on Montana’s public college campuses now that the U.S. Supreme Court has given gun owners a green light to take on local and state governments over Second Amendment protections. Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, said Thursday that he will review state regulations and laws to see whether it’s worth challenging any gun restrictions.
Although he said the state is pretty good about respecting rights of firearm owners, he said the ban on guns at public colleges stands out as an infringement that should be removed. “The Montana Constitution does give the Board of Regents broad power to manage the university system, but it doesn’t give them any power at all to suspend people’s constitutional rights. But they’re doing it,” he said. Marbut and gun-rights advocates across the country are feeling more empowered after recent Supreme Court rulings – one in 2008 that struck down a handgun ban in Washington, D.C., and re-affirmed the right to keep and bear arms; and a 5-4 decision Monday in a Chicago case that allows gun owners to challenge local regulations as a violation of their Second Amendment rights.
Experts predict that the high court’s decision could encourage lawsuits over many regulations, such as gun-licensing requirements and limits on firearms carried outside the home…
https://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20100702/NEWS01/7020317/State-university-ban-on-guns-may-take-fire
BTW, GFT reporter Ledyard King did a very fair job with this story and reported my comments accurately.
As an anecdotal aside, I was interviewed the same day by another reporter for another daily Montana paper. The reporter seemed to need education about RKBA issues. At one point in delivering this education, I offered the observation that most gun control advocates are irrational. The reporter stopped me and challenged me to justify that comment. Since we were talking about guns on campus, I responded this way to the reporter’s challenge:
Suppose a madman determines to commit a Virginia Tech-style massacre on the Montana State University campus. Gun control advocates believe that this madman, who has already decided to violate humanity’s most profound taboo against taking innocent life and all the laws associated with that, and who expects to die in the process (all mass murderers expect to die in the process) – gun control advocates believe this madman will somehow become aware of an unenforceable university policy against guns on campus and because of this existing policy the madman will abandon his plans for mayhem, mass murder and his own death simply out of respect for this policy. Such thinking, I told the reporter, is clearly irrational by anyone’s standard.
There was a period of silence. Then the reporter said “Thank you for the interview.” End of interview.
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! I encourage you to be thinking about what independence, liberty and individual freedom mean to you and to those in your orbit.
Best wishes,
Gary Marbut, presidentMontana Shooting Sports Association
author, Gun Laws of Montana
https://www.mtpublish.com
About Montana Shooting Sports Association:
MSSA is the primary political advocate for Montana gun owners. Visit: www.mtssa.org
**Image: by Olegvolk.net