from Gary S. Marbut
President, Montana Shooting Sports Association
mssa@mtssa.org
http://www.mtssa.org
I hope to be able to contribute something to the discussion
between Angel Shamaya and Andy Barniskis of the Bucks County Sportsmen
Coalition.
For background, Gun Owners of America recently sent out an email
"alert" advising members to oppose a bill, HB 258, being pushed in
the Montana Legislature by the Montana Shooting Sports Association and other
in-state, pro-gun organizations. GOA's adverse description of the bill was most
inaccurate and very inflammatory.
For the record, the bill would revise the methodology for raising funds to
fuel the already-existing shooting range development program in Montana, and
make a switch from using in-state hunter license fees, to auctioning off a
handful of moose, sheep and goat permits, and non-resident big game combination
licenses to raise money for the program. GOA incorrectly asserted in their
inflammatory "alert" to Montana gun owners that passage of the bill
would accomplish a government control of all shooting ranges in Montana, and
that all Montana gun owners could continue to own guns only if they were stored
in government-controlled lockboxes at the newly government-controlled ranges, an
accusation clearly designed to scare uninformed Montana gun owners into opposing
HB 258.
As a result, lots of concerned gun owners have contacted legislators
insisting that HB 258 be killed, so these law abiding gun owners won't have
their guns taken in the GOA-alleged gun confiscation scheme. Because of the
GOA-induced outcry, the Legislature has now stripped the permit auction funding
mechanism out of the bill, which returns the range development program to the
less free-market-oriented status quo of using in-state hunter license fees to
fund the program.
When KeepAndBearArms.com defended
the Montana approach, and suggested that GOA owed a retraction and an apology
for how GOA had mucked things up in Montana, Andy responded
in defense of GOA and in criticism of KeepAndBreaArms.com.
First, I am glad that Andy has taken the time to comment on this. There are
too many who don't care, or can't be bothered to do anything positive for the
RKBA - too many who think it's enough to only bitch and assume somebody else
will do something. Apparently, Andy is willing to get involved. As our
Secretary/Treasurer often says, "This is a good thing."
Allow me to begin with a basic philosophical point as a good starting point
for this discussion. The Montana
Constitution says, at article II, Section 1,
"Popular sovereignty. All political power is vested in and derived
from the people. All government of right originates with the people, is
founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the
whole."
This is a basic premise of all governance by popular consent.
It may be that there have been beneficial laws enacted in Pennsylvania, as
Andy asserts, which have not born fruit for the people there. If so, the
citizens of Pennsylvania have only themselves to blame. No agency, entity or
level of government ever enforces upon itself any constraints to limit power,
size or scope. That is necessarily the job of the people, the sovereigns. One
hundred times out of one hundred, if the people fail to assert their sovereign
authority to enforce statutory limitations on government, then whatever level or
agency of government is not constrained will assume growing authority. This is
the nature of man, and of the cooperative workings of man, such as governments.
Like George Washington, I view all levels of government as, not some sort of
potential or real goodness, but as a barely tolerable menace and unavoidable for
certain cooperative ventures. I believe that the common defense and public roads
are examples of two activities where people appropriately pool their resources
through the cooperative agency of government to accomplish together what they
could not accomplish acting individually.
I do also believe that governments have come to occupy much
too large a place in our lives, and that a great deal of what is done for
and to us by federal and state governments ought not be done, except from people
to people in neighborhoods, through churches and other local associations, but
never by wielding the ultimate force of the barrel of a gun that is the final
physical authority for most governmental assertions (e.g., if I don't pay my
property taxes, the county or state imposes a lien on my property; if I still
don't pay, they take title and sell my property; if I don't move out, they send
the sheriff; and if I won't cooperate with the sheriff, in the final event, he
pulls his gun to enforce the edict of the government, as a last resort, with a
bullet).
Having said all of that, there remain some activities which are appropriate
missions for people to bestow upon government as a cooperative form of action.
The shooting range development program in Montana is a concept where the
citizens went to their elected representatives in the Legislature, and asked
them to compel our public servants, in the form of our Department of Fish,
Wildlife and Parks (FWP), to use some of the monies that are already being
collected from hunters, for hunting licenses, to make grants to people and
entities in Montana wishing to establish or improve safe and suitable places for
Montana people to shoot. Since we estimate that more than 90% of the households
in Montana contain firearms, we believe that Montana needs a plenitude of safe
and suitable places for people to learn, practice and play with their firearms.
FWP has actually resisted for a decade our efforts to force them, via
legislation, to be our agents in this matter.
Only someone totally ignorant of the circumstances here could ever claim that
this is some sort of government conspiracy to take over shooting ranges, as GOA
has done in it's attempt to derail HB 258.
Further, in Montana, the citizens still have the upper hand over our
government. We are still sufficiently assertive that the state government must
do what the laws require, because WE enforce those legal constraints on our
government agencies. If Andy and his fellow citizens have lost control over
their public servants, I certainly sympathize with them, but that is not the
case here in Montana. That's precisely why we were able to go the Legislature
last session with seven pro-gun bills, and get six of those passed. And, we are
unwilling to forego the benefits of cooperative action (i.e., telling our FWP to
parcel out money to improve ranges) simply because citizens in another place (as
Andy alleges about Pennsylvania) have failed to retain control over their
servants.
Also, there ARE some "government shooting ranges" in Montana. But
not many. As I know of, there is one shooting range on a U.S. Air Force base,
one range developed and used by the Montana National Guard, one range owned and
operated by the Montana Law Enforcement Academy, and a handful of other ranges
developed and used by local law enforcement agencies. None of these ranges have
used any funds available from sportsmen through our (OUR!) shooting range
development program. If any of these agencies were to apply for, be granted, and
accept any funds from the program, they would immediately be required to open
their ranges to some sort of reasonable public access.
There are quite a few shooting ranges in Montana owned, operated and managed
by private associations of sportsmen and gun owners. None of these ranges
are required to apply for or use any funds made available under the program.
And, I'll bet that, given the extant laws in Montana (notably our shooting
range protection act, which I wrote, and which was the first such act in the
U.S.), civilian shooting ranges in Montana are less subject to governmental
authority and control than anywhere else in the U.S., maybe in the World. In
fact, because of our vigilance, there are NO laws in Montana controlling ranges,
although the normal constraints attached to any private property owner would
pertain to range properties, including civil liability.
And, ranges which do apply for and accept grants from our range development
program (which, as I said before, is already on the law books in Montana) are
only required to surrender to two types of restraints from the state, both of
which I (I am not a government employee or elected official) wrote into the law
to protect the investment of the people who are paying into the program through
hunter license fees (no taxpayer money whatsoever). Those two constraints are
these:
1) If an association should receive a grant, improve their range, then quit
operating the range (allow it to close or become unusable), there is a provision
in the grant contract that allows FWP, on behalf of the investors (Montana
sportsmen and women), to assume the property/range and locate a new association
of sportsmen to operate the range. There have been occasions in Montana where an
organization operating a range simply dissolves and walks away. In that
instance, we reserved the opportunity in the shooting range development act to
get an abandoned and previously-funded range back into service.
2) If an organization applies for and accepts a grant for range improvement,
they are required to satisfy one of two schemes for allowing public access to
the funded facility. This is to make sure a handful of good ole boys don't use
program funds, then declare that only they and a very few of their buddies may
use the range. The two acceptable schemes for satisfying the public access
requirement are these:
a) the operating organization can allow the general public to use the range
for a day use fee per person, including under some limited circumstances (such
as limiting to one day per week, and/or limiting these day-use people to
certain parts of the facility, or
b) the organization must allow into its membership and full use of its
facility anyone who is eligible to purchase a Montana hunting license and who
pays the organization's usual dues, which must be no more than a reasonable
share of the organization's cost of operating and improving the range. Ranges
in some parts of the U.S. charge thousands of dollars for membership in order
to limit membership, or have a fixed membership limit.
Neither of these types of membership limitation would allow an applicant
range qualify for funding under option b).
So, this is all of the "government control" that would apply to
ranges which seek and obtain improvement grants under the program. And, these
"control" items are ones which citizens have crafted and asked the
Legislature to impose on the public agency selected by the citizens to manage
the program.
Three other comments are in order.
First, the change in the shooting range program contained in this session's
HB 258, against which GOA railed with such hyperbole, is nothing more than a
change in the funding mechanism to support the program. As I pointed out in my
letter to Larry Pratt, the shooting range program itself has been operational
for a decade, and was put into the law books in a prior session of the
Legislature. So, the range development program will continue, whether or not HB
258 lives or dies. Further, GOA has been aware of our range development program
for a decade, and never before voiced any objection, including calling me on the
phone to talk about the concept.
The change in funding for the program contained in HB 258 is to shift from
using in-state hunter license dollars (no general tax revenues), to selling a
handful of high-value Montana game permits at auction in order to realize full
value from these permits.
There is a much greater demand for these permits than the supply of animals
allows harvest. This is why we (the people, through our Legislature) limit the
hunting of these animals - so non-residents don't swarm the state and take them
all. Normally, these permits are awarded by lottery. Because the method for
limiting permits to available game supply is by the artificial lottery method in
Montana, rather than through the market method of raising prices, these permits
are normally priced way below full market value.
Our HB 258 would allow a few of these permits to be sold at full market
value, rather than through the more democratic (socialistic?) lottery method.
This scheme would realize the full value from these few permits, and we
would put the EXTRA money raised (beyond the price for which FWP would usually
sell the permit under the lottery method) into the shooting range development
program. Therefore, the HB 258 would move the funding methodology in the free
market direction. Said differently, failure to achieve passage of HB 258 would
retain the less free market-oriented (more socialistic?) method of funding for
range development.
Second, we still have a citizen Legislature in Montana. Our Legislature meets
only every two years, and then for only 90 working days. And the people who
serve in the Legislature come from all walks of Montana life. They are not
fat-cat, career politicians like in some other states, who take up permanent
residence in the State Capitol for all practical purposes but re-election. Our
legislators live in motel rooms, in friends' basements, and in their hunting
camp trailers, while they are temporarily in the State Capitol enacting the laws
we ask them to enact. Other states which have allowed their legislators to
become permanent political commissars have our sympathy but not our respect.
Third, in Montana, we're doing pretty well in terms of protecting our right
to keep and bear arms - probably better than anyplace else in the U.S. We don't
really appreciate carpetbaggers telling us how to conduct our affairs any better
than they do in Georgia. While we are a friendly and hospitable folk, we
naturally resent having outside ideas imposed on us, especially ideas and
limitations on our freedoms, such as the Brady Law and the Feinstein semi-auto
and magazine ban, both of which were imposed on us by the representatives in
Congress from the other states. One of the reasons why it was not possible to
forestall the Brady Law in Congress is because in most other states, the
citizens had already allowed the politicians to impose background checks and
waiting periods on gun buyers at the state level.
And, having outside and contrary ideas imposed on us from the Beltway area is
no more welcome when it comes from an organization supposedly pro-gun, telling
us what we need (for our own good, of course), than when it comes from an
anti-gun organization or a paternalistic, Big Brother government.
One might argue that GOA certainly enjoys the right to free speech, which
they do. However, if all they were after was exercise of free speech (rather
than imposing their national-view agenda, or creating a ruckus), they certainly
would have called me before coming out of left field with their attack on our HB
258. Said differently, if they really wanted what's best for Montana gun owners,
rather than to only kick up a fuss, they'd have called me to check the accuracy
of their claims about HB 258 before launching their attack.
More specifically, applying Second Amendment terms to First Amendment
activity, they would have watched their muzzle direction more carefully, and
when they found their sights lined up on a no-shoot target (another pro-gun
organization), they would have kept their finger out of the trigger guard. Using
their First Amendment rights, they were careless with muzzle direction, and
squeezed off a "sound shot", without having properly identified their
target. However, one difference with this First Amendment negligent discharge is
that they hit two targets, another pro-gun group and their own foot. Shooting
themselves in the foot can be dismissed with a mixture of humor and contempt.
But, the careless and negligent shooting of a friend is not a forgivable act.
We've all heard that, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words
can never hurt me." This old saw implies that words do not have
consequences. Well, that is not the case in this situation. Because of GOA's
ill-considered attack on our range funding proposal, HB 258, the members of the
committee of the Legislature having charge of HB 258 received a lot of angry
phone calls from constituents who were alarmed that the Legislature was
considering such a "Socialist Shooting Range" bill, which, in the
words of constituents parroting GOA hyperbole, would cause a full government
takeover of all shooting ranges in Montana, requiring all gun owners to store
their firearms in government lockboxes at government ranges, and where access to
firearms would only be with government permission. Because of this general
alarm, committee members have chosen to strip the funding mechanism out of the
bill, and put in a measly and temporary $60,000 of hunter license fees, rather
than agree to the more market-oriented funding which the bill proposed, and
which was estimated to raise $350,000 in this funding cycle.
In killing the proffered, market-oriented funding mechanism, legislators have
listened to objections from constituents, who have been incited by misleading
information in the GOA attack. The result is the continuation of the past
funding mechanism, which, according to most observers, is more
"socialistic" than that funding proposed under HB 258.
