For immediate release: 1/1/13
From: Cecil Bothwell, Asheville City Council
Subject: Gun shows on City owned property
Contact: cecil@braveulysses.com, 828-713-8840
Bothwell demands enforcement of City gun ordinance
Asheville City Council member Cecil Bothwell today called for the City of Asheville to ban gun shows from City-owned properties, including the WNC Agricultural Center.
“Our municipal code specifically prohibits the carrying of weapons on City owned properties. I don’t understand why that law is not being enforced,” Bothwell said.
The City of Asheville’s Civic Center and WNC Agricultural Center have both been rented to gun show promoters in recent years, despite this long-standing ban.
Bothwell explained, “Many citizens have contacted Council members asking for action in the wake of the Newtown school murders, but the City has very little ability to regulate guns, permitting or background checks under North Carolina and United States law. However, we do have the power to enforce the laws that are on the books.”
“Gun shows not only promote the ownership and use of weapons, including the glamorization of the assault-type, semi-automatic killing machines used in too many mass murders, but sellers at shows are not required to perform background checks on buyers. That means that guns intended for rapid fire killing may easily fall into the hands of persons who are mentally unstable or who have criminal intent.”
“This is one place we can easily draw the line,” Bothwell added. “The law is already on the books.”
Section 12-42 of Asheville’s City Ordinances reads as follows:
(a) No person shall possess, use or carry any firearm, gun, rifle, pistol, air rifle, spring gun or compressed air rifle or pistol, or other similar device or weapon which impels or discharges with force any bullet, shot or pellet of any kind, including arrows with metallic tips or sharp tips of any nature, designated to penetrate and propel a bow or spring dvice, in any park or other city-owned facility. Further, no person shall possess, use or carry any knife, other than an ordinary pocket knife, which means a small knife, designed for carrying in a pocket or purse and which has a cutting edge and point entirely enclosed by its handle and that may not be opened by throwing, explosive or spring action, or a kitchen knife, when it is used or intended to be used for its ordinary purposes, in any park or other city-owned facility.
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It goes on to exempt those holding conceal-carry permits from the restriction on parks (as mandated last year by the General Assembly) and law enforcement officers.
Bravo, Mr. Bothwell. Well done.
Not much we can do, but what we can, we should.
Thanks for the note!
-c
thank you for giving something concrete to support! You’re correct….This should be a slam dunk. Is there a petition we can add our names to?
Ramona Rowe
Ha, ha , ha! Another LIberal that simply wants to be seen as doing “something” even when that something means utterly nothing, and has no effect. Churchill was correct about men who aren’t conservative by the age of being brainless. People like Bothwell prove it everytime we turn around.
Enforcement of a law on the books since 1994 seems to me unlikely to be “utterly nothing.” And if I manage to get the City to enforce its law, it will have a very specific effect. As to being seen to be doing “something,” in fact most elected officials have been showered with requests to “do something” since the Connecticut tragedy. Rather than make an empty motion endorsing “doing something, anything,” I decided to take action that could have a very specific effect, and which was within the purview of local government.
Never heard of “the age of being brainless” but I imagine that refers to late onset Alzheimers.
You might want to check who owns the Ag Center. Hint – it isn’t the City of Asheville.
From their webpage:
The Western North Carolina Agricultural Center is owned by the STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
and operated by the NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE & CONSUMER SERVICES.
You might want to look beyond their Web page at the facts. The Buncombe County portion of the Ag center sits on land titled to the City of Asheville. The state owns the buildings.
The ordinance states “any park or other city-owned facility.” Land is not a “facility”. The buildings owned by the state are the “facility” in legal terms.
If you want the City of Asheville tied up in court for years with high legal bill, go ahead and push it. However, I’d refer you to a California case Nordyke v. Alameda where the County of Alameda banned gun shows on county property. After a 13 year battle, gun shows are now held on county property.
N.C.G.S. 14-409.40(d) “No county or municipality, by zoning or other ordinance, shall regulate in any manner firearms show with regulations more stringent than those applying to shows of other types of items.”
I see you deleted my post where I cite the N.C. statute that prohibits they city from doing this. N.C.G.S. 14-409.40 (d). Interesting you would do this when the facts/law don’t support you . Just to repeat myself in case you “accidentally” missed it, it reads: ” No county or municipality, by zoning or other ordinance, shall regulate in any manner firearms shows with regulations more stringent than those applying to shows of
other types of items.”
See ya at the gun show! By the way,that would be a great way to meet constituents of yours who may have other views than yourself. But then again, you never have been fair to all the constituents have you…just those that echo your thoughts.