During the last year we have seen that government buildings are not the safe places we once thought they were. Individuals have used firearms not to protect, but to bully and intimidate.
A proposal in the Legislature, LD 805, seeks to authorize municipal clerks to prohibit guns from polling places in their communities. State law prohibits guns in schools and the State House, for example, but not polling places. This bill would give clerks the option in their respective communities to do so.
Standing near someone carrying a gun is intimidating to many. At the polls it has a particular impact, chilling one’s First Amendment right to vote.
State law prohibits political speech within a certain perimeter of a polling place. Certainly, it should permit the prohibition of firearms at that same polling place if a municipal clerk so determines.
Polly Haight Frawley
Cumberland
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