[Vision2020] Who owns Idaho’s streets? You or the militia?

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today’s Lewiston Tribune at:

https://lmtribune.com/opinion/opinion-who-owns-idaho-s-streets-you-or-the-militia/article_23541979-93c9-55df-bc65-fe1ee2de0bdc.html#tncms-source=article-nav-next

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OPINION: Who owns Idaho’s streets? You or the militia?

 Almost 100 years ago, the terrain surveyed by Idaho’s lawmakers included:

l A resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan.

l The massacre of Blacks and the destruction of their homes and businesses in the prosperous Greenwood District of Tulsa, Okla.

l Rising economic unrest that would culminate in the Great Depression.

l An armed civilian population.

The Idaho Legislature responded with a ban on private armed militias operating outside civilian control.

It remained an obscure statute. Unlike a pair of related criminal laws that ban training militia members in techniques used “in the commission of civil disorder” or usurping the authority of law enforcement officers, this one entitled citizens to take their grievances against the armed marauders into the civil courts.
 
A similar provision provided Georgetown Law Center’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection with the means to successfully sue organizers of the 2017 “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. The result banned the defendants from employing paramilitary tactics during rallies and protests.

But consider what Idaho legislators have witnessed since:

l Groups of self-appointed armed activists occupying the streets of Sandpoint, Coeur d’Alene and Lewiston during the summer of 2020.

l That same summer, acolytes of agitator Ammon Bundy disrupting a special session of the Idaho Legislature.

l The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“This isn’t a theoretical concern for us,” Sandpoint Mayor — and Democratic gubernatorial candidate — Shelby Rognstad says. “A group of high schoolers had a human rights march. A rumor went out on social media that an Antifa gang was going to attack Sandpoint. A large group of heavily armed people started patrolling our little town, and many people in the community felt harassed and intimidated.”

How does the current crop of Idaho legislators respond?

By voting to repeal the one remedy that refuted Lewiston Police Chief Budd Hurd’s assertion after the June 6, 2020, armed invasion of the community that he “had no choice but to allow these people to occupy downtown. ... I had no reason not to.”

Thirteen members of the House Transportation Committee — including Reps. Charlie Shepherd, R-Pollock, and Brandon Mitchell, R-Moscow — on Wednesday forwarded it to the House floor for passage.

They did so even after the sponsors, the Idaho National Guard operating with the blessing of Idaho Gov. Brad Little, admitted their earlier claims about this law conflicting with First Amendment free speech and Second Amendment gun ownership rights were in error.

They did so in spite of the fact that the law had never been used, let alone abused.

They did so fully aware that Idaho was among a majority of states with such laws on the books.

They did so after listening to one witness after another express dread and fear over watching their streets being overtaken by what some described as armed vigilantes.

Who were they pandering to?

Not the people of Lewiston who hunkered down in their homes on that D-Day two years ago because they were afraid to venture downtown.

Not the people who supported the Black Lives Matter rally held that same day.
 
Certainly not the people who simply wanted to spend a summer evening at a downtown restaurant.

Not the downtown businesses that were deserted by many of their customers.

And not the people who live in downtown apartments, who found themselves confronting unwarranted questioning from a group of people armed to the teeth.

Only someone who seeks to intimidate private citizens on their own city streets with impunity would applaud that.

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Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
http://www.MoscowCares.net

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

“A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met.”
- Roy E. Stolworthy
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