O'Neil's school gun bill fails in House

A bill that would have provided students charged with possessing a firearm at a school with an evidentiary hearing before expulsion had mixed results in the Montana House before failing on a third reading on Feb. 27 by a vote of 45-53.

Rep. Jerry O’Neil, R-Columbia Falls, introduced House Bill 384 partially in response to an incident at Columbia Falls High School in 2010 in which Demari DeReu, a 16-year-old student at the time, accidentally left an unloaded rifle in the trunk of her car while it was parked at the high school.

O’Neil said the bill was drafted mostly by Gary Marbut, president of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, a group he supports. A similar bill O’Neil sponsored in 2011 failed to get out of the Education Committee.

As originally introduced, the bill would have allowed students to have guns on school property for instructional purposes if the guns were locked in the students’ vehicles or in an approved locked container. That wording was removed with O’Neil’s consent, but the amended bill was defeated in its third reading.

“Of course I’m disappointed,” O’Neil said after the vote. “I wanted to encourage shooting sports in schools and get rid of ambiguity.”

HB 384 failed on its second reading in the House on Feb. 23 by a 49-51 vote but was brought back for reconsideration two days later by a 50-48 vote.

A motion to amend the bill was overwhelmingly approved on Feb. 26 by a 99-1 vote, and the amended bill passed its second reading that day by a 55-45 vote. The bill failed to pass on a third reading the next day.

“I don’t know what the hang-up was,” O’Neil said.