Everytown for Gun Safety has announced that Montana has the 47th weakest gun laws in the United States. This is a truly awful state of affairs. Montana should be embarrassed. How did Idaho, Mississippi, and Arkansas beat us? We should be 50th!

We already knew that the folks at Everytown aren’t the brightest bulbs, so it’s not surprising that they may not have gotten things right. I looked through their Gun Law Checklist so you wouldn’t have to. They, of course, have gotten several things wrong. Again, I am not a lawyer, but I’ve dug through their checklist and compared it to our actual laws. Here are the items they claim keep us from a perfect score:

No Guns in K-12 Schools

Does not have a law allowing carry in K–12 schools by staff or other permit holders

They obviously weren’t aware of 45-8-361(3)(b):

 The trustees of a district may grant persons and entities advance permission to possess, carry, or store a weapon in a school building.

While we have a law that says you can’t carry in schools, we also allow the trustees of a district to override this prohibition for specific persons. Therefore, we do have a law that allows carrying in K-12 schools by staff or others. In fact, those staff and others don’t even have to be concealed-carry permit holders. We also have 45-8-360 which is meant to circumvent the prohibitions of the federal Gun Free School Zones Act. Yes, it would be nice if we had a law that said anyone who can legally carry may carry in schools without the trustees’ permission, but Everytown got this one wrong. What a surprise.

Hate Crime Prohibitor

Bars people from having guns after a hate crime conviction

This is not true, there is no such law. The closest thing we have to this is an optional sentence enhancement for hate crimes in 45-5-222:

45-5-222. Sentence enhancement — offenses committed because of victim’s race, creed, religion, color, national origin, or involvement in civil rights or human rights activities. (1) A person who has pleaded guilty or nolo contendere to or who has been found guilty of any offense, except malicious intimidation or harassment, that was committed because of the victim’s race, creed, religion, color, national origin, or involvement in civil rights or human rights activities or that involved damage, destruction, or attempted destruction of a building regularly used for religious worship, in addition to the punishment provided for commission of the offense, may, if the provisions of 46-1-401 have been complied with, be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not less than 2 years or more than 10 years, except as provided in 46-18-222.

This law just allows for more severe sentences for the described offenses, which could be misdemeanors (which usually don’t remove gun rights) or felonies (which do). So, Everytown is wrong again.

No Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights

Does not impede efforts to hold police accountable for excessive force and other misconduct

Ok, and what does this have to do with gun rights? Being able to hold police accountable for violating your second amendment rights is protected in Montana as a basic human right by 49-1-210, so this really goes the opposite way. Another loss for Everytown.

Violence Intervention Program Funding

State budget includes funding for community violence intervention programming

Again, I have no idea what this has to do with gun rights. We even have local pre-emption in Montana with 45-8-351, so those programs couldn’t do anything with that money to infringe upon our gun rights.

Step aside, Arkansas. Montana is the real winner here!