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Utah in a showdown over concealed guns
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Utah in a showdown over concealed guns
Associated Press
June 07, 2002 20:00:00
SALT LAKE CITY - Utah's attorney general says he'll defend the right of citizens to bear arms. But with the Legislature insisting that includes the right to carry concealed weapons into courthouses and college classrooms, he's facing unlikely opponents - judges, professors, and even otherwise conservative sheriffs.
"I can't ignore it," Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said. "My job is to uphold the law."
Gun rights are fiercely protected in Utah. Earlier this month, a petition drive to ban guns from schools and churches got only about half the signatures needed for a place on the November ballot.
This is all historical residue from frontier mentality, said Dave Walter, researcher for the Montana Historical Society.
"You had to wrest civilization out of the wilderness. So firearms were one of the means of doing that. Then times change, and we're still packing guns. It's a little bizarre," Walter said. "It's much easier now to say it's a Second Amendment right, but I really do think it's part of that awful Western tradition."
About 40,000 Utah residents, including Shurtleff, have permits to carry concealed guns. That's about one in every 55 Utahns. But Shurtleff has landed in a standoff over where those guns should or shouldn't be allowed.
A law the Legislature passed earlier this year that requires courthouses to have gun lockers has outraged state judges and worried county sheriffs charged with courthouse safety.
Backed by the National Rifle Association, concealed-weapon carriers wanted to be able to leave their guns inside courthouses while they went to court. They said it would avoid the problem of having to leave the firearms at home, in cars or - in some cases - hidden in bushes near courthouses.
Judges and law enforcement officials were caught off guard by the law.
"Nobody thought it was going to pass. No one took the bill seriously," said Judge Ronald Nehring, who works in the Salt Lake City-based 3rd District.
Gary DeLand, executive director of the Utah Sheriffs' Association, is a former sheriff's deputy who has his own concealed-weapon permit. It's tough for law-and-order guys to disagree with the law, he said, but he does question the logic behind the courthouse lockers.
"It's silly to allow people to walk into courthouses with guns," he said. "Anytime you've got that degree of emotion in one place, it's probably not a good idea to have a lot of guns floating around."
San Juan County Sheriff Mike Lacy, who teaches concealed-weapons classes, put it simply: "The gun lockers are a bunch of bull."
To get around having the lockers, the judges think they've found a loophole in the law's wording. The 13-member Judicial Council decided to do away with so-called "secure" areas in courthouses, where carrying a gun would be a felony. Without those special zones, the gun lockers won't be necessary, the judges said. But bringing a gun into a courthouse still would be a misdemeanor.
NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam called sidestepping the law "an overzealous case of judicial activism."
Shurtleff isn't so sure the issue is over and has his attorneys studying the judges' move. He also wants to get the judges together with the lawmakers and work out a compromise.
The attorney general's other gun headache is a federal lawsuit filed against the state by the University of Utah.
The school says it should be able to continue to keep students, faculty and staff from carrying guns on campus. Shurtleff said the school's 25-year-old policy violates state law that only the Legislature has the authority to regulate guns.
During a public debate with Shurtleff, University of Utah law professor John Flynn vowed to resign if the school is forced to accept concealed guns on campus.
"Trying to recruit someone nationally when we're known as the only major university in the country where guns are allowed on campus would be disastrous," Flynn said.
Shurtleff says banning concealed weapons gives people a false sense of security. In fact, he said, it makes people less safe then before because only the "bad guys" will have the guns.
Shurtleff, still in his first term, initially was pulled into the gun debate when the small southern Utah town of Virgin, population 350, passed an ordinance in June 2000 requiring every home to have a gun and ammunition for self-defense. Shurtleff had to tell the town that the ordinance violated state law.
Then last year, gun-toting Republican delegates wanted to bring their concealed weapons into the GOP convention during a speech by Vice President Dick Cheney. The Secret Service didn't like that idea.
Shurtleff was able to defuse the situation by using his own campaign money to rent lockers, which held 25 guns during the speech.
When Cheney left, the gun owners got their guns and returned to the convention.
"It seems like every issue that comes up is over guns," Shurtleff lamented. "I'm not generating it, that's for sure." http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0607utahguns-ON.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Associated Press
June 07, 2002 20:00:00
SALT LAKE CITY - Utah's attorney general says he'll defend the right of citizens to bear arms. But with the Legislature insisting that includes the right to carry concealed weapons into courthouses and college classrooms, he's facing unlikely opponents - judges, professors, and even otherwise conservative sheriffs.
"I can't ignore it," Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said. "My job is to uphold the law."
Gun rights are fiercely protected in Utah. Earlier this month, a petition drive to ban guns from schools and churches got only about half the signatures needed for a place on the November ballot.
This is all historical residue from frontier mentality, said Dave Walter, researcher for the Montana Historical Society.
"You had to wrest civilization out of the wilderness. So firearms were one of the means of doing that. Then times change, and we're still packing guns. It's a little bizarre," Walter said. "It's much easier now to say it's a Second Amendment right, but I really do think it's part of that awful Western tradition."
About 40,000 Utah residents, including Shurtleff, have permits to carry concealed guns. That's about one in every 55 Utahns. But Shurtleff has landed in a standoff over where those guns should or shouldn't be allowed.
A law the Legislature passed earlier this year that requires courthouses to have gun lockers has outraged state judges and worried county sheriffs charged with courthouse safety.
Backed by the National Rifle Association, concealed-weapon carriers wanted to be able to leave their guns inside courthouses while they went to court. They said it would avoid the problem of having to leave the firearms at home, in cars or - in some cases - hidden in bushes near courthouses.
Judges and law enforcement officials were caught off guard by the law.
"Nobody thought it was going to pass. No one took the bill seriously," said Judge Ronald Nehring, who works in the Salt Lake City-based 3rd District.
Gary DeLand, executive director of the Utah Sheriffs' Association, is a former sheriff's deputy who has his own concealed-weapon permit. It's tough for law-and-order guys to disagree with the law, he said, but he does question the logic behind the courthouse lockers.
"It's silly to allow people to walk into courthouses with guns," he said. "Anytime you've got that degree of emotion in one place, it's probably not a good idea to have a lot of guns floating around."
San Juan County Sheriff Mike Lacy, who teaches concealed-weapons classes, put it simply: "The gun lockers are a bunch of bull."
To get around having the lockers, the judges think they've found a loophole in the law's wording. The 13-member Judicial Council decided to do away with so-called "secure" areas in courthouses, where carrying a gun would be a felony. Without those special zones, the gun lockers won't be necessary, the judges said. But bringing a gun into a courthouse still would be a misdemeanor.
NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam called sidestepping the law "an overzealous case of judicial activism."
Shurtleff isn't so sure the issue is over and has his attorneys studying the judges' move. He also wants to get the judges together with the lawmakers and work out a compromise.
The attorney general's other gun headache is a federal lawsuit filed against the state by the University of Utah.
The school says it should be able to continue to keep students, faculty and staff from carrying guns on campus. Shurtleff said the school's 25-year-old policy violates state law that only the Legislature has the authority to regulate guns.
During a public debate with Shurtleff, University of Utah law professor John Flynn vowed to resign if the school is forced to accept concealed guns on campus.
"Trying to recruit someone nationally when we're known as the only major university in the country where guns are allowed on campus would be disastrous," Flynn said.
Shurtleff says banning concealed weapons gives people a false sense of security. In fact, he said, it makes people less safe then before because only the "bad guys" will have the guns.
Shurtleff, still in his first term, initially was pulled into the gun debate when the small southern Utah town of Virgin, population 350, passed an ordinance in June 2000 requiring every home to have a gun and ammunition for self-defense. Shurtleff had to tell the town that the ordinance violated state law.
Then last year, gun-toting Republican delegates wanted to bring their concealed weapons into the GOP convention during a speech by Vice President Dick Cheney. The Secret Service didn't like that idea.
Shurtleff was able to defuse the situation by using his own campaign money to rent lockers, which held 25 guns during the speech.
When Cheney left, the gun owners got their guns and returned to the convention.
"It seems like every issue that comes up is over guns," Shurtleff lamented. "I'm not generating it, that's for sure." http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0607utahguns-ON.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878