Belle Meade Gun Ban
I got this via email of the NRA warning that:
On Wednesday, March 17, the Belle Meade Board of Commissioners will consider a proposed ordinance (Ordinance 2010-2) that would forbid any person with a handgun carry permit to carry within the city limits.
This would be problematic because it’s a violation of Tennessee’s preemption laws. And probably unconstitutional. The other issue is that I didn’t know anything about it. So, I sent an email to some folks to see if they had heard of it and ACK posted about it. Turns out (via ACK), not so much:
The current Belle Meade municipal code includes a section on firearms and weapons that says “it is unlawful for any person to carry in any manner whatever, with the intent to go armed and razor, dirk, knife, blackjack, brass knuckles, pistol, revolver or any other dangerous weapon or instrument…”
It also includes the phrase “except the army or navy pistol which shall be carried openly in the hand.”
The new ordinance deletes the exception that would include the Navy black powder pistol Leonard Embody carried when he walked down Belle Meade Boulevard in mid-February.
The author, Sherry Phillips, continues:
Embody, who is active on many gun rights blogs, first gained attention in December when he brandished a loaded AK-47 pistol at Radnor Lake State Park.
I think he was active. Most blogs and message boards I know of have banned him or made fun of him for being an asshole. Also:
As you probably know, he came into the city [with a Navy model 1851 black powder pistol] basically forcing our hand on the law,” Thornburg said. “The police were expecting him to come, we were expecting him to push buttons.”
She said Embody found a loophole in the law that allowed him to carry the military-style weapon, and the city is amending the law to take off the out of date exemption.
For once, the press uses the phrase military-style correctly to describe a 150 year old black powder revolver.
March 17th, 2010 at 10:05 am
Is it officially an assault pistol now? Some people need their hands forced. These laws are about to become obsolete anyhow. Belle Meade is a yuppy paradise that needs some serious changes. While the guy forcing their hand is controversial what he did is not illegal. Those guys who burn the american flag or worse yet the USMC flag really annoy me, but what they do is not illegal. God, Corp, and Country.
March 17th, 2010 at 10:19 am
The law would make sense,
That is where the scum of Nashville lives.
March 17th, 2010 at 11:39 am
I do like the fact that, while the old Belle Meade law was grandfathered and thus immune to pre-emption, this change to the law makes it now pre-empted. I have to salute Mr. Embody for that, at the very least.
Regards,
Pol
March 17th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Thats what he wanted them to do. He still isn’t smart enough to understand how an officer would draw a weapon on him for following the law by carrying a pistol in his hand down the street. It was attempted to explain to him the difference in perception between open carry and carry in the hand.
March 17th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
He forced these victim-disarmament ninnies to change their law … and make it fall under state pre-emption.
Well played, actually.
A grandfathered gun law is now vulnerable to legal attack.
March 18th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
There should not be a grandfathered gun law period to make vulnerable to attack.
March 18th, 2010 at 7:20 pm
There should not such alws, but in California there are a lot and we attack ’em.
March 19th, 2010 at 6:15 am
WOW.
That phrasing was originally introduced in the laws designed to keep poor black folk unable to defend themselves. I’m literally surprised to find that it’s survived in any way.
Should someone point out the racist roots of the Bell Meade code?