Mt Shooter
Member
The Montana Shooting Sports Association, and its leader, Gary Marbut, had a lot to do with our current ccw law. Now they are saying to with hold funding because students are not allowed to carry on campus. Students for Concealed Carry are also backing this.
The link to the article:
http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/09/10/news/state/40-gunbarrel.txt
contents:
By CHARLES S. JOHNSON
Gazette State Bureau
HELENA - The Montana Shooting Sports Association, backed by some national gun groups, said Tuesday that it is urging Montanans to vote in November against the 6-mill property tax levy that helps fund the state University System.
Kicking off its "Send a Message" campaign, the group's president, Gary Marbut of Missoula, called on Montana voters to oppose Legislative Referendum 118 on the Nov. 4 ballot and end the taxpayer subsidy of "dangerous victim-disarmament zones" imposed by the University System on campuses.
He is critical of the 1999 policy adopted by the Board of Regents that allows only campus security officers and private security officers to carry firearms on college campuses. Students who bring weapons for hunting to dormitories are required to store them in locked rooms, open only at certain times of the day.
"Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University have displayed with human blood just how dangerous these disarmed-victim zones are," Marbut said. "The Montana University System has been absolutely unwilling to negotiate about its potentially deadly and unconstitutional campus gun bans.
"Current campus policies only guarantee that a madman will encounter no effective resistance on a Montana campus," he said. "We deplore that our children should become sacrificial victims to such an irrational and dangerous policy."
While the Montana Constitution grants broad authority to the regents to manage the University System, it gives the Board of Regents no power to suspend the Montana Constitution, Marbut said.
Joining the Montana Shooting Sports Association were some national groups: Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, Gun Owners of America and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
In response, Larry Simpkins, a Missoula businessman who is co-chairman of the committee promoting passage of the tax levy, said the gun groups are the only organized opposition to the levy to his knowledge, while many other groups back the levy.
"They're entitled to their opinion, but we're more excited about the broad coalition we have around the state and that have shown early support for the levy," said Simkins, president of Washington Corps.
He said the issue raised by the gun groups "isn't what this campaign is about." Instead, Simpkins said, "it's about affordable access to education."
The levy appears on the Montana ballot once a decade, and voters have always approved it. The levy was lower in the past, but was raised to 6 mills in 1958 and has remained at that level.
Officials estimate that the levy would raise $13.4 million annually in each of the next two years out of the system's $200 million, student-supported annual budget. The system's overall annual budget from all sources - counting research and development, dormitory fees and other sources - is $1.2 billion, Sheila Stearns, state commissioner of higher education, said earlier this year.
The link to the article:
http://billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/09/10/news/state/40-gunbarrel.txt
contents:
By CHARLES S. JOHNSON
Gazette State Bureau
HELENA - The Montana Shooting Sports Association, backed by some national gun groups, said Tuesday that it is urging Montanans to vote in November against the 6-mill property tax levy that helps fund the state University System.
Kicking off its "Send a Message" campaign, the group's president, Gary Marbut of Missoula, called on Montana voters to oppose Legislative Referendum 118 on the Nov. 4 ballot and end the taxpayer subsidy of "dangerous victim-disarmament zones" imposed by the University System on campuses.
He is critical of the 1999 policy adopted by the Board of Regents that allows only campus security officers and private security officers to carry firearms on college campuses. Students who bring weapons for hunting to dormitories are required to store them in locked rooms, open only at certain times of the day.
"Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University have displayed with human blood just how dangerous these disarmed-victim zones are," Marbut said. "The Montana University System has been absolutely unwilling to negotiate about its potentially deadly and unconstitutional campus gun bans.
"Current campus policies only guarantee that a madman will encounter no effective resistance on a Montana campus," he said. "We deplore that our children should become sacrificial victims to such an irrational and dangerous policy."
While the Montana Constitution grants broad authority to the regents to manage the University System, it gives the Board of Regents no power to suspend the Montana Constitution, Marbut said.
Joining the Montana Shooting Sports Association were some national groups: Students for Concealed Carry on Campus, Gun Owners of America and the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
In response, Larry Simpkins, a Missoula businessman who is co-chairman of the committee promoting passage of the tax levy, said the gun groups are the only organized opposition to the levy to his knowledge, while many other groups back the levy.
"They're entitled to their opinion, but we're more excited about the broad coalition we have around the state and that have shown early support for the levy," said Simkins, president of Washington Corps.
He said the issue raised by the gun groups "isn't what this campaign is about." Instead, Simpkins said, "it's about affordable access to education."
The levy appears on the Montana ballot once a decade, and voters have always approved it. The levy was lower in the past, but was raised to 6 mills in 1958 and has remained at that level.
Officials estimate that the levy would raise $13.4 million annually in each of the next two years out of the system's $200 million, student-supported annual budget. The system's overall annual budget from all sources - counting research and development, dormitory fees and other sources - is $1.2 billion, Sheila Stearns, state commissioner of higher education, said earlier this year.
