From the Sidelines: Gun Advocates, Hunters, Deer Heads and Lots of People

In my fifteen years on the Montville Township Committee the largest public attendance came not on taxes, not on public improvments and not even on the proposed budget. It came on a meeting in which I had proposed a non-discharge ordinance on Municipal Open Space property.

My thinking was the we had purchased large tracts of open space for land preservation and recreational use. We have hiking trails and many who venture into the preserved mostly woodland area was to simply enjoy nature and they weren't always aware of hunting seasons and the fact the these tracts were mostly wide open areas.

The purpose of the ordinance was to protect both hunters and the general public who could well be in the same areas at the same time. Current law say that you cannot discharge a weapon within 400 feet of a home or building but much of this land especially in Northern Montville is far from existing homes. This ordinance was brought forward by me just shortly before the first Bear Hunt Season and aside from locals who hunt my thinking was that it would also attract hunters from outside of the area. To me it seemed like a common sense approach and it was land that was owned by all the tax payers of Montville Township.

To be clear I grew up in Montville Township and hunted and trapped as a teenager. Montville Township's population was about 6000 in those days and now we are 22000-23000. It is a different Township and a different population. I knew the meeting would draw interest. It became the largest group of the public who  attended a meeting in the fifteen years I served. We had NRA leadership, we had hunters and gun advocats. We even had a speaker come to the podium with a large plastic garbage bag out of which he he dumped the head of a dead deer in a certain state of decay which fell to the floor with a thud. He claimed the deer had been attacked by a Bear, hense the need for a bear hunt. I will say if the Bear did attack this deer he must have done it with a big knife because the cut was clean.

I had grown up with many of the people in the room but there were also a large number of the most vocal people who came from other areas and spent their time at the podium talking about the Second Amendment and Slippery Slopes. The intent of my proposed ordinance had nothing to due with that. There may have been people in the room that agreed with me but only one woman who was not intimidated at all spoke in favor of the Ordinance. My motion was tabled in favor of another Committee of Hunters and other people who came up with the proposal to just follow the state discharge law of 400 ft from a home. The one thing I did get was a map outlining the areas which were open-space and where houses were located in the more wooded areas of town.  It wasn't what I wanted at all but it was all the Committee was willing to do.

Any issue about firearms brings out strong feelings and I am reminded of the line from the movie Tombstone where Virgil Earp tells people as he put up a "no carry law" in city limits. We don't say you can't own a gun, We aren't saying you can't carry a gun, We are saying you just can't carry it in Town" and that was Tombstone, Az. in the 1881.