Police in Montgomery, Alabama continue to investigate a shooting this past weekend that resulted in the murder of a 17-year-old and a 43-year-old and injuries to a dozen others. According to Montgomery Police Chief James Graboys, authorities believe one of the victims was targeted, and the chief says that others were shot during the initial burst of gunfire as well as shots fired in response by a number of other individuals.
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No arrests have been made, no firearms have been recovered, and at this point there’s no public information suggesting that anyone involved legally possessed the guns that were used in the shooting (or were even old enough to legally own a gun). Still, Montgomery City Council Member Marche Johnson is calling for a “pause and review” of a gun show slated to be held at the city’s Alcazar Shrine Center in a few weeks in response to the shooting.
Johnson issued her demand in a Facebook post:
“In light of recent events and growing concerns around unregistered firearms in our community, I am calling for a temporary pause and review of the upcoming Gun Show in Montgomery.
This is not a call against responsible gun ownership — it’s a call for accountability and safety. We must ensure that all firearms entering our communities are properly registered and that background checks are consistently enforced for public events of this nature.
Our goal is to protect families, reduce gun violence, and create policies that make Montgomery safer for everyone. I am committed to working with event organizers, law enforcement, and state leaders to put clear safeguards in place before such events move forward.
We can respect the Second Amendment and protect our citizens — those two priorities must go hand in hand.”
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With all due respect to Johnson, what on earth is she talking about?
Gun registration? There’s no such thing in Alabama, thank goodness. And how does cancelling a gun show ensure that background checks are “consistently enforced”? The law in Alabama is clear: commercial transactions must include a background check run through the National Instant Criminal Check System. Private person-to-person sales, on the other hand, are not subject to background checks. In fact, there’s no way for those private parties to use the NICS system even if they wanted to.
Johnson isn’t calling for a temporary pause on the upcoming gun show. She’s calling for an end to gun shows in the city (and perhaps the state as well) until Alabama revamps its gun laws to look more like California or New Jersey, which isn’t going to happen any time soon.
The council member has received plenty of pushback in replies to her post, and it remains to be seen if she’ll actually try to put a halt to the show, which is scheduled for the first week in November. Honestly, I don’t know that there’s anything the city council could do, at least nothing that wouldn’t result in a lawsuit from the organizers of the show.
Alabama’s firearm preemption law generally precludes localities from adopting their own gun control ordinances, though a separate section of state statute states:
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“Any city or town shall have the power to license, tax, regulate, restrain, or prohibit theatrical and other amusements, billiard and pool tables, nine or tenpin alleys, box or ball alleys, shooting galleries, theatres, parks, and other places of amusement when, in the opinion of the council or other governing body, the public good or safety demands it, to refuse to license any or all such businesses and to authorize the mayor or other chief executive officer by proclamation to cause any or all houses or places of amusement or houses or places for the sale of firearms or other deadly weapons to be closed for a period of not longer than the next meeting of the city or town council or other governing body.
Theoretically, I suppose, the mayor could issue a proclamation “closing” the Alcazar Shrine Center at any point after the city council’s October 14th meeting and that closure would remain in effect until the next council meeting on November 4. The gun show is slated to take place on November 1-2, but there are also a number of other events that would be impacted, including a “Sportsman’s Gun Giveaway” on October 18 and several performances by the Alcazar Brass Band.
We’ll see if this is what Johnson is intending, as well as whether the mayor would go along with any such move, but this language is something the Alabama legislature should look at repealing during its next session as well. Localities shouldn’t have the broad power to close gun shops and shut down gun shows for weeks at a time with nothing more than a declaration that the public good or safety demands it, and lawmakers should take whatever action is necessary to end the potential abuses of our Second Amendment rights enabled by that statute.
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