Featured photo: Flint Resident Laverne Williams
Written By Jameca Patrick-Singleton, with photo by Jameca Patrick-Singleton
As of last week, Judge Brian Pickell has issued an injunction which will allow attendees of public meetings held at Flint City Hall to carry firearms inside the building. This decision is a result of a lawsuit filed by residents and gun activist groups, claiming the new ordinance, which declared City Hall a gun-free zone, violates the Open Meetings Act and could be preventative for residents to attend public meetings held in the building.
The injunction is temporary until the completion of the case results in a permanent solution. It only allows guns in spaces where public meetings are held. Visitors are still banned from taking firearms into areas of the building where regular business is being conducted.
Residents have mixed feelings about the injunction.
“I don’t like it” said Flint Resident Laverne Williams. “Why do they need to carry guns to a meeting? A lot of times, people are mad about issues and those meetings get heated. We see too much stuff in the world today when people get emotional and have guns with them. I don’t think they should have guns at those meetings.
Another resident Chase McFlarin disagreed with Williams.
McFlarin stated: “Michigan is an open carry state for a reason. Once we start rolling back the rights of the people, where will it end?”
Pickell’s order stated: “Defendants are attempting to require a lesser degree of openness relative to their open meeting [i.e. excluding a person from any such meetings based on her/his possession of the subject personal-protection items (e.g., self-defense spray, electro-muscular disruption devices, pocket knives and firearms)] (hereinafter “said personal-protection items”) than the standards for openness provided for in the OMA.”
