At the beginning of October, a situation took place on Seeley Lake Fire District property where a volunteer was carrying a gun and it made someone feel uneasy. According to Fire Chief Dave Lane, the person felt intimidated that fire district volunteers could carry on district property.
The fire district doesn’t have a policy in place that restricts firearms on district property. Some districts develop policies that do in their particular locations. Doing so and posting signage of the policy is not a violation of any federal laws, like the Second Amendment, and falls under the category of gun safety laws.
The volunteer was reprimanded, and Lane said he didn’t think writing a policy to address a single incident was appropriate.
“We have to wait a long time for law enforcement and for someone to come into my office who’s very angry and has a gun, I (would) have no defense if (the board was to) get your policy,” Lane said.
Lane’s comment was echoed by some fire district board trustees. Fire Department Secretary Rita Rossi said sometimes it takes law enforcement two hours to get to the fire department, and she “doesn’t want to be left out vulnerable to some violent act.” All were concerned regarding district volunteer and staff safety and noted how being a fire district located in a rural area has its own complications — like the potential for extended response time from law enforcement when it’s needed — that make carrying on property practical.
But concerns regarding public safety led to a trustee proposing a policy to restrict firearm carrying on district property, which ultimately failed and further discussion was tabled until February. Questions regarding liability, wanting the public to feel safe and welcome at the fire department, what proper training looks like and how state law changes regarding open carry permits play into the consideration of a new policy lingered and warranted further research by the board.
“I feel strongly, especially after what happened, that we should have a policy that guns not be on the property but locked up in the car if you need to have one,” Shirley Goudzwaard, fire district trustee who proposed the policy, said during November’s meeting.
Michael Bowman, who joined the Seeley Lake Fire District as a volunteer in February and works for the Missoula Rural Fire District, said carrying on the job is a problem. He said he believes in the right to bear arms, but district volunteers are not law enforcement. To the concern about law enforcement response time, Bowman brought up that law enforcement presence in Seeley Lake has increased, with there now being two deputies and 24-hour deputy presence in Seeley as of November 2023.
“If we’re in a situation where we pull the gun (and) something happens, the liability of the district, (it) doesn’t matter if you have training or didn’t have training, if we fire a weapon as a district member I think we’re hanging ourselves out to dry,” Bowman said.
Bowman said the Missoula Rural Fire District doesn’t allow firearms on district property.
Trustee members weren’t certain where liability lied, which was part of the reason the conversation was tabled until a later meeting. Lane said he intends to speak with legal counsel about the matter and potentially invite an attorney to the Feb. 18, 2025 meeting to explain the liability principles to the board and public.
There was also back-and-forth on whether it was or wasn’t allowed to carry firearms, either openly or concealed, on government property. Seeley’s fire department is located on Missoula County property.
In 2021, the Montana Legislature passed a law allowing for concealed carry without written authorization from the government and streamlined the application process. Referred to as constitutional carry, this opened up concealed carry to a wider variety of places, including banks and bars where it was formally prohibited. The law excludes law enforcement buildings, federal buildings, courtrooms, detention centers, TSA checkpoints, private property where the owner forbids firearms and K-12 schools.
The law provides an exception regarding public safety for “city, town, consolidated local government or other local government unit” to prohibit “the carrying of unpermitted concealed weapons or the carrying of unconcealed weapons to a publicly owned and occupied building under its jurisdiction.”
While questions regarding what proper training might look like and where liability lies remained unanswered after the meeting, all were concerned about the safety of district volunteers.
“We want our first responders to be safe and feel safe when they’re out on calls,” Susan Monahan, fire district trustee, said.
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