It's time we joined the 21st century on gun control

The Festival at Sandpoint snafu is still here. The suit brought by ISAA, backed by the Bonner County commissioners and sheriff, to allow weapons onto Memorial Field during the Festival is scheduled for a status hearing. The county and city are already into this for an estimated $100,000 plus and we’re looking at status? One wonders how far this suit would get if ISAA had to foot the legal costs all alone? ISAA should be bearing the bulk of the cost if they’re so eager to get guns into public events.

All this kerfuffle will do is give out-of-state lawyers tons of money, cost Bonner County and Sandpoint taxpayers those same tons of money and could kill an event that puts an estimated $4 million annually into the community. After all, what could possibly go wrong with putting people carrying guns in a place with easy access to alcohol during a rock or country concert?

Basically we’ve got a county government that believes that the Second Amendment trumps the rest of the Constitution. I think it’s time for the rationale people of Bonner County to raise their voices and tell this distinct minority that we’re taking our county back.

Bullies wearing guns shouldn’t be allowed to determine policies and regulations. It’s time we joined the 21st century and left the late 19th. But I demean the late 19th century — many of the towns in the “untamed West” had laws that prohibited guns in saloons and other businesses. We should learn from their wisdom.

GIL BEYER

Sandpoint