Last night I discovered a couple of day old article about City of Missoula engaging in an emergency clampdown on concealed carry heading into the election.
Montana has undergone rapid Californiacation in recent years. Once the state was Big Sky Country, home to ranchers and miners. People who worked hard and made their money off the land.
California Liberals, having ruined their own state, fled – or perhaps more accurately metastasized – into Colorado. Once only a vacation spot for Californians, many decided to relocate there permanently. The once cowboy state of Colorado is now the San Francisco of the Rockies. Having destroyed the politics of Colorado, Californians spread into Montana.
Consequently, Montana has become surprisingly liberal for such a large, rural state. A quarter of the state’s population lives in to metropolitan areas, Billings and Missoula.
It is Missoula that we turn our attention to today.
Missoula City Council expands gun-free zones to parks, all polling places, public buildings
The Missoula City Council expanded the list of places Monday where weapons are banned, despite comments that ran about two to one against the proposal.
Three of the 11 city council members at Monday night’s meeting voted against the amendment to the current weapons’ restriction ordinance, saying they had some concerns about the ability to enforce it, worried it went too far and were not sure it would actually make Missoula safer.
Most restrictions on concealed carry go too far and won’t make anybody safer, still it happens because the Left hates guns.
“I think we have done some good work tonight. It is a good policy, but I have some concerns about the ordinance and the ability to enforce it,” said Julie Armstrong, who along with Michelle Cares and Jesse Ramos opposed the amendment. Armstrong holds a concealed carry permit, and initially tried to alter the amendment to allow others with permits to carry firearms in some city parks, but that motion died.
Council member Heather Harp said while they heard from “a lot of impassioned souls from all sides,” she doesn’t feel as though threats to her personal safety lurk around every corner, and that the expansion of the firearms ban is quite limited.
“When talking about firearms, people’s lives are at stake,” Harp said. “There’s so much violence in the world. We are a country that continues to be a place that allows citizens access to guns, and none of us are talking of taking that away. We just want places where they are limited.”
She feels safe in a park so everyone has to have their guns restricted there? This is more “my Liberal feelings trump your civil rights.”
Council member Mirtha Becerra added that people may carry guns with good intentions to save their friends and families if they are threatened, but that if shooting does begin, the police don’t always immediately know who is the bad guy.
“What they don’t carry is a sign saying ‘I’m the good guy. I’m stable,'” Becerra said. “It’s a judgment call for people not carrying the gun. I don’t think that should be a judgment call, and we don’t have to wait until an incident happens to make this more clear.”
I cannot think of a single case where the police show up to an active defensive shooting and kill the CCW holder. If someone knows about one, let me know in the comments. The reason for CCW is that the cops are never there when you need one, and most shootings last little more than a few seconds. The likelihood of a cop rolling up on a protracted CCW gun battle is next to zero. This is a bullshit talking point.
About 75 people crowded into the Missoula council chambers for the 2 1/2-hour public hearing, with some gun proponents explaining how they could help protect their families and friends, while also invoking their Second Amendment right to bear arms.
I bet that 74 of them were pro gun. The problem for us and for places like Montana, Colorado, the Dakotas, Florida, etc., is that we pro gun conservatives are too busy working. It’s the Liberals who have the luxury of running for office and holding spots on city counsels and state legislatures.
While the ranchers ranch or the miners mine, the Californicators have the resources to run for office.
I’d run for office but I don’t have a year’s savings put aside for me to pay my bills while I do all the campaigning I need to do and I don’t have a billionaire benefactor to bankroll me.
“These are not people in our society we need to be restricting their opportunities and their freedoms,” said Steve Tidwell. “Criminals are still going to be criminals. Responsible folks will still be responsible whether they carry a weapon or not. To me this is a needless ordinance and will only restrict people from going to public places where they should be there to protect others and themselves.”
TRUE
Others people like Jean Larson, wearing a red Moms Demand Action T-shirt, warned of the dangers and intimidation caused by gun-toting individuals.
Enter the billionaire bankroll.
“Gun violence is a public health emergency in our nation. Ninety-five people are killed per day with guns,” Larson said. “We have a need and a right to be safe from this public health emergency.”
Not in Montana. Imposing Chicago CCW restrictions in Missoula won’t do anything but restrict the freedoms of gun owning Montanans.
Council member Julie Merritt proposed the changes in September as both an emergency amendment and an update to an existing city ordinance after concerns were raised about open and concealed carrying of weapons in polling places. Weapons aren’t allowed in schools, where many polling places are. But there are also voting sites that are not school based.
“It was brought to our attention that the county attorneys office fields quite a few questions from the public about concealed carry in certain places, including polling places,” Merritt said.
She wanted to clarify and expand the ordinance to include polling places as well as other public places. The emergency amendment route was needed in order to have the ordinance in place by the Nov. 6 election.
The amended ordinance, which is effective immediately, prohibits members of the public from bringing firearms into any building where the City Council meets or to public assemblies, public museums, the public library, certain public parks under the city’s jurisdiction and “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.”
So I wonder if Antifa is going to try to swing the MT Senate race for Tester?
Can anyone say voter intimidation of Rosendale supporters?
This is a very close race and the GOP has squeaked ahead of the Dem candidate in the wake of Kavanaugh, who was very popular among Montanans.
Generally speaking, the 52 public parks where firearms will be prohibited are those that have playgrounds, aquatics features, park shelters, sports or special event facilities and those that regularly serve as outdoor youth camps or classrooms, or serve primarily as a safe route to schools.
Because having a holstered concealed gun near a playground gives off gun cooties that hurt children.
Missoula is now under the thumb of Michael Bloomberg and Montana gun rights are dying from Californian graft vs. host syndrome.
I hope Rosendale’s supporters aren’t bulled from voting.
This is a cancer that needs to be stopped.
I suppose Montana doesn’t have preemption, then. In Georgia, cities cannot impose extra restrictions past state law.
I don’t know if they have preemption. It may not matter the city may do what it wants and wait to be sued. It is not like there is a consequence. Arizona has total preemption but Tucson does what it wants until it is sued otherwise.
In NH officials have some personal liability for violation of permit laws. I’m pretty sure that applies to carry permits (which are now optional, thanks to Constitutional Carry). Not sure if that carries over to attempts to impose local restrictions in spite of pre-emption.
We do have a preemption law. Missoula has violated our State Constitution with this stunt, and we’re fighting it in the Supreme court. We’ve also got a Initiative planned for November, LR 130, which will stop any other towns or cities in Montana from pulling this stunt. Amazing we have to pass laws to tell the politicians they can’t disobey our laws.
Not sure where you’re getting your data but Californians are not invading Montana and Colorado. Sure, some end up there but the bulk of immigration into those two states is coming from elsewhere. In Colorado, Texas and Oklahoma account for many of the new residents, particularly west of the Front Range.
Missoula is a college town, thus it leans left but make no doubt, Montana is still a very red state.
Here’s an article that talks a little more about where Californians are going to these days: http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/the-conversation/sd-california-losing-low-income-people-gaining-wealthy-people-per-report-20180221-htmlstory.html
I live here, and the article is absolutely true. My State is being inundated with the plague that is California. A short trip through Bozeman will open your eyes.
25 years ago, my wife and I flew out to Kalispell to go to Glacier National Park. On the way back, we sat in front of two guys talking about one having moved his company there from California – Silicon Valley type company. The guy who moved the company said, “you give up about 20% of your pay, but you get this beautiful scenery, the hiking, the mountains…”
They used to say the same thing about working in Florida. Remember ever hearing, “you get 20% of your pay in sunshine and beaches”?
The movement was going on back then.
An internet full of articles about Californians moving to Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming.
A good friend who lives in Billings, where the No. 2 purchaser of homes is Californians (No. 1 is Montanans raised on the ranch who move into the city for work).
Six personal years of experience in Western South Dakota seeing it happen in the Black Hills and to our neighbors to the West.
Every time some celebrity bought a multi-million dollar luxury log cabin in a Western state because they wanted to “get away from the city” and “experience nature” they served as a magnet to attract more people fleeing the coasts.
Then they decide that they love the rustic cowboy look but hate the actual cows and fight tooth and nail to end the grazing rights or livestock easements on the property they just bought that go back to the 1880’s.
Go watch the episode of King of the Hill called “A Rover Runs Through It” and realize that is not a parody. I had friends in South Dakota who had exactly that happen to them.
Yep, happening in Idaho also. Boise and Nampa mostly. Idaho does have pre-emption, and so far remains reliably red, but we have had to remind some city councils of the pre-emption law. Maybe our reputation for deep snow and cold winters has something to do with keeping out more Califoricators.
Montana also has a long history of labor unions being a significant factor in state politics.
1) Bullsh*t on them being “Californians”.
CA may have been the last place they soiled, but to a 99.999% certainty, they weren’t born here, and are about as “Californian” as Ahnuld Schwarzenegger.
2) Look up where Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer are from. And 95% of the Hollyweirdos. I’ll wait. Own your own share of the problem, and we’ll take the hit for Fineswine and Moonbeam.
3) CA was red state as recently as 1990. But none of your do-nothing congressmen and senators saw any problem with letting in millions of illegals a year, because at the time they were all flocking to CA. How’s that plan working out for ya now? And how many migras are standing outside the Missoula or Billings Home Depotrs, looking for day labor every day? I guess that means Montana is part of Aztlan too.
4) CA was never a liberal haven until your toothless banjo-playing kinfolk moved here from the other 48 states (Alaska, still being American rather than Dumocrat gets a pass there), so that’s reality for any value of “your”. Now they’re moving back home. Hope you like them back as much as we did.
5) So…who was it who elected the numbnuts city council dweebs that Montanaficated Missoula’s carry law ordinances? And where are those council dweebs from?
>cue crickets chirping<
ZFG for those who shipped their lead-paint-chip fetal alcohol syndrome retarded nephews here, and are now getting their grandnephews back in spades.
You got the government you deserve. Lump it.
Oh, and welcome to my world.
Take care of your own problems, quit knee-jerk hating on places you don't live, and stop trying to palm the root of all evil onto people smart enough not to live in 20' of annual snowfall 8 months a year. That reality alone is how you know the folks moving in aren't "Californians". They're just folks who miss snow and seasons and communing with nature, and happened to live in L.A. for a couple of years. The last time we named that bunch hereabouts, they were known as "hippies". They weren't "Californians" then either. (Bonus points: Charles Manson was born in which state? Now Google Clint Eastwood. The defense rests.)
Or just be smarter than a bag of hammers, and sell the new arrivals "wolf, cougar, and bear repellant spray" that smells like steak and salmon.
And tax the hell out of anything that's hipster.
The idiots will disappear soon enough if you'd just do that.
Missoula and Bozeman are overrun. Billings has the college influence as well but it’s a lot more of a sane place to be. Same thing for Helena. Kalispell and anything around Flathead Lake is a playground for rich ass holes from the left coast now.
Arizona’s high country is the same story. Flagstaff, Sedona, Prescott and now even places like Cottonwood (thanks to booming boutique wine region) are getting tons of retiring California’s moving there. Of course they are all looking for a lower cost of living but then back the same high tax policies from the place they moved from.
This is happening in Idaho, Utah, and even parts of Wyoming as well.
Montana went Trump 56% to Clinton’s 35%. Wyoming 68-21. South Dakota 61-32. Idaho 59-27.
Washington, Oregon, Idaho have been escape hatches for Californians for years…that’s nothing new. And the wealthy that you see buying their ranches in the mountains of the other states that are mentioned are certainly not a mirage.
But to say that any of these states are being turned into California is a little much. There are pockets of blue in just about every state. And the very red states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho are probably not exempted. But the vast, vast majority of populace remains very much red.
You can take a deep breath and calm down.
Aurora, Colorado. A recent incident where the bad guy broke in got himself dead, police see the homeowner exit his front door with a weapon and kill the HOMEOWNER.
https://www.policeone.com/officer-shootings/articles/478447006-Police-fatally-shoot-homeowner-who-shot-intruder/
I am on the side of law enforcement 95% of the time. However, I don’t see this as a good shoot. Sounds like an officer who wet himself at the sign of a firearm in the hands of someone not wearing a uniform. JMHO.