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executive actions would likely have little or no impact on the issue of guns getting into the hands of the wrong people.
“The things the president announced in his news conference are mostly smoke and mirrors and are not going to have much impact on the street, I don’t think,” Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, said. “A lot of the things that he talks about are things that have been in the works for executive branch agencies for a year or more.”
Marbut said his organization plans on going into the 2017 Montana Legislature with more pro-gun bills, with the main focus on eliminating gun-free zones, including on college and university campuses.
In an interview with the Beacon, Montana U.S. Sen. Steve Daines said growing up in this state allowed him to learn how to properly handle a rearm as a child, and he views rearms as “a part of who we are as Montanans.”
From his Congressional seat, Daines, a Republican, said he believes that had Obama’s executive actions been in place a year ago, they wouldn’t have stopped the mass shootings.
“My concern is that the president, as this new year began, he had a chance to set in play a narrative around how we can address these issues of violence and these mass shootings,” Daines said. “Instead, what he has done is he’s more focused on undermining the Second Amendment rights on law-abiding Americans.”
Daines said the focus of the gun narrative should be on the mental illness issues of recent mass shooters, the issue of stolen guns being used, and the existence of gun- free zones.
He said better access to mental health care “needs to be” on his own agenda moving forward, especially when
Sen. Steve Daines. BEACON FILE PHOTO
it comes to providing such care for underserved commu- nities, including a majority of Montana towns. Daines also said new laws on rearm access should focus on sto- len guns and people who are complicit in the purchase of rearms that end up used in a crime.
“We need to put laws in that are tougher on crimi- nals,” Daines said.
According to data from the Montana Incident-Based Reporting System, law enforcement reported that re- arms were used in 532 crimes in 2014, including 16 mur- ders. And the Centers for Disease Control and Preven- tion reported there were 172 gun-related deaths in the state in 2013, up from 171 in 2012.
Montana U.S. Sen. Jon Tester released a statement after the president’s announcement, mentioning that he is a gun owner and supports closing the “background check loophole” at gun shows.
“Unfortunately this announcement speaks to the dysfunction of Congress and its failure to tackle tough issues,” Tester said. “I’m looking closely at this to make sure that it doesn’t infringe on our Second Amendment rights or erode our western values while also protecting us from folks who would do us harm.”
At Montana Ri e Co., Sipe said he’s not particularly worried about Obama’s recent actions and is more con- cerned with nding hardworking employees to ll 18 open jobs. Crews are currently working to clear a six-month backlog of orders, but Sipe thinks they’ll have to add night shifts so they can have production running 22 hours a day to keep up with demand. A new building might also be in the works if they continue to run out of space.
“We still want to make sure that when somebody gets their ri e, it’s the best quality,” Sipe said.
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JANUARY 13, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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