A coalition of gun-rights groups is arguing that a federal appeals court should overturn a conviction of a Billings man who appeared to be menacing an elementary school from across the street as he walked around his property, often with gun in hand.
Gabriel Cowan Metcalf previously pleaded guilty that he was in violation of a gun-free zone around a grade school and gave up several weapons after repeated calls to the Billings Police, who could do little about the problem because state law allows for constitutional and open carry. However, federal law enforcement officers took Metcalf into custody because of a federal firearms law that make carrying guns illegal within 1,000 feet of school grounds. Metcalf’s residence was located across the street from Broadwater Elementary, on Broadwater Avenue, a busy five-lane street in the heart of Montana’s largest city.
While Metcalf’s attorneys have issued a notice of appeal, alerting the district court that they’re appealing his sentence, the Second Amendment Law Center, the California Rifle & Pistol Association, the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, the Second Amendment Foundation, the Second Amendment Defense and Education Coalition as well as the Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois, have joined together in a friend-of-the-court’s brief to support and the persuade the appeals court to overturn Metcalf’s conviction on the basis of his Second Amendment rights, reports the Daily Montanan.
In their brief, they argue that Montana District Court Judge Susan P. Watters made several key mistakes in her ruling that the gun-free zones were legal and justified. Attorneys for the Second Amendment advocacy organizations said that they believe the Founding Fathers would have demanded armed citizens in light of the mass school shootings.
“Faced with an increase in violent attacks at schools, the Founders would have never seen disarming peaceful adults as the solution,” the brief said. “They would have allowed them — or even required them — to be armed to deal with the violent threats.”
Metcalf had argued in legal filings before the case was settled that the children and teachers of Broadwater Elementary were not the problem. Instead, he claimed that a former neighbor had been harassing him and stalking him, so he felt the need to be continuously armed. Seeing a man mowing his lawn with guns alarmed teachers, parents and even motorists passing by, but Billings Police reported there was little they could do about it. This led officials at the Billings Public Schools to move children away from the playground, putting up a large black tarp on a fence to block the view of Metcalf who was seen frequently armed, in front the house in which he lived.
Wrong history, wrong conclusion
The organizations said that Watters, in her ruling, had used a cherry-picked selection of cases to justify her decision to enforce the gun-free zone around a school. Furthermore, attorneys for the Second Amendment organizations say that gun-free zones and the number of schools sets up a scenario where citizens don’t even know they’re violating the law.
The case also said that if schools are indeed “sensitive” areas that cannot tolerate armed citizens, then it must be the federal government’s responsibility to provide protection, as in courthouses and polling locations.
“If a government wants to deem a place ‘sensitive’ and off-limits to those lawfully carrying firearms, then it should offer comprehensive security at those places, as it does courthouses, airports and in legislative chambers,” the brief said. “It declares wide swaths of land around all schools — a thousand feet in every direction — completely off limits to the right of armed self-defense, but it does nothing to protect any of that area from criminals.”
It also argues that the 1,000-foot rule for all schools, regardless of which state or city they’re located in, is arbitrary and there’s nothing inherently safer about the distance.
The coalition also argues that Watters’ relied too much on the wrong examples to form her opinion. For example, attorneys for the organizations said that her use of polling locations was misplaced because while guns are not allowed into polling places, where voting takes place, that is a temporary condition that exists for an election, not every day of the year, regardless of whether school is in session.
Zones overlapping zones
The challenge for law-abiding gun-owners, the suit said, is that they may not be familiar with the location of every school in any area, and they may not know how far 1,000 feet is. Attorneys for the gun owners coalition said that there’s a big difference between 1,000 feet in the densely populated Manhattan in New York City and Montana schools.
“Given the sheer size of these zones, it can be very easy to go about one’s day and stop for coffee, get gas, or even just drive near a school while otherwise lawfully carrying without realizing you have entered a school zone,” the brief said.
The problem only grows larger as more states recognize reciprocity for those wanting to carry a gun.
“As visitors from out of state are the least likely to know where schools are located, they are the most at risk of an unintended but nonetheless serious criminal charge,” the brief said.
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