Montana Supports the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Chuck Baldwin writes:

The Montana resolution recalls, "When Montana entered into statehood and adopted the Compact as a part of the Montana Constitution in 1889, included was a provision guaranteeing the right to bear arms to 'any person.'"

The resolution continues, "To be clear, the wording of the right to bear arms reservation in the Montana constitution is exactly the same today as it was in 1884."

Furthermore, the Montana resolution says, "There is no question that the contract into which Montana entered for statehood was predicated upon an understanding that the people of Montana would benefit from an individual and personal right to bear arms, protected from governmental interference by both the federal and Montana constitutions. That was the clear intent of the parties to the contract."

The resolution ended by stating sternly, "A collective rights holding in Heller would not only open the Pandora's box of unilaterally morphing contracts, it would also poise Montana to claim appropriate and historically entrenched remedies for contract violation."

In other words, representatives and senators in the State of Montana unequivocally put Washington, D.C., on notice that it would not tolerate the infringement of its citizens' right to keep and bear arms. I don't think I'm reading anything into the resolution by assuming that they were implying that they would secede before they let the federal government trample their Second Amendment liberties. (Plus, I've just been told that New Hampshire may also be preparing to propose such a resolution.)

Montana has it exactly right!