Montana Has Been Dealing with Gun Legislation for 160 Years!
Author: Bob Brastrup
Montana Has Been Dealing with Gun Legislation for 160 Years!
Montana's first territorial legislature met from December 12, 1864, to February 9, 1865. They passed almost 100 bills
The Daily Montanan featured a June 28, 2021 article by Tim Lehman. It reads in part ‘…According to the territory’s first newspaper editor Thomas Dimsdale, “shooting, dueling, and outrage were daily occurrences” in Virginia City and Bannack. Granville Stuart, as close to a founding father as the territory produced, remarked that in 1860s Virginia City it “became the custom to go armed all the time”.
Yet the territory’s first legislature passed a law banning “the carrying of concealed deadly weapons” anywhere within the limits of any town in the territory. Such laws were not unique to Montana. Most states banned concealed weapons in the 19th century, considering them the weapons of assassins and thieves, not appropriate for an honest man…’
Page 20 of the February 21, 2008 issue of the Carbon County News printed the following from the February 27, 1918 issue of the paper:
Owners of weapons must register them
Every Montana resident who owns a rifle, shotgun revolver, dagger or sword must register his weapon with the sheriff of the county in which he lives under the provisions of the Stevens law enacted at the special session of the legislature.
In addition, every merchant who sells such a weapon must make a record of the transaction for submission to the city officials and no person may purchase a firearm and have it shipped into the state without first obtaining a permit for the transaction.
Sheriff George Headington is already making preparations for the registration of weapons and the issuance of permits and will announce in a few days when and with whom owners of weapons may register. Sheriff Headington desires to emphasize the point that the registration of a weapon is not a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
In a newspaper of that era, an ad from a sheriff emphasizes that all ammunition must be picked up at the sheriff’s office.
Montana has been dealing with gun legislation for 160 years!
Bob Brastrup
Townsend
