NEW CARLISLE — Voters in New Carlisle will decide in November whether city employees and officials should be allowed to carry firearms while on the job.
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The measure, which will appear on the ballot, asks citizens if the City Council should “pass legislation permitting City of New Carlisle employees and officials to carry firearms while conducting city business.”
As reported on News Center 7 at 5:00, the proposal was placed on the ballot following a 5-1 vote by the City Council earlier this year, but it also talked about still not allowing guns in the city’s administrative office building, where people pay utility bills.
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New Carlisle Mayor Bill Cook told News Center 7 in a phone interview early Friday evening that he is against this proposal.
“Primarily (because) we’ve been a village since 1831,” Cook said. “(And) in that time frame, I don’t believe we have seen the necessity of employees and/or councilmen carrying guns.”
Although Cook says he’s against the proposal, he voted to put this measure on the ballot during a city council meeting earlier this year.
“I voted to put it on the ballot because I saw that we were going to be outnumbered five to two,” Cook said. “The only way to get this possibly solved would be to put it on the ballot and hopefully the citizens would defeat the issue.”
New Carlisle City Councilman William Lindsey voted to put the proposal on the November ballot and says he supports the plan.
“I am a firm constitutionalist,” Lindsey told News Center 7 in a phone interview Friday night. “I believe in the Second (Amendment) to give me protection for myself and others that cannot protect themselves in harm’s way for whatever reason. Naturally, I believe that would include somebody with threatening somebody with a weapon.”
And Lindsey added, “I just think it’s time that with a lot of these elected officials throughout the country, you know, we had a U.S. (Congressman) here not long ago, a few years ago, shot playing baseball. Somebody tried to assassinate some of them.”
Lindsey was referring to the June 2017 mass shooting where then U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise was among the four people wounded when a gunman opened fire on lawmakers in Alexandria, Virginia during a practice for the annual Congressional Baseball Game.
“The most recent one that comes to mind, and forgive me, I forget the (State Representative’s) name up in Minnesota, where somebody knocked on her door posing as a police officer and shot her and her husband. So I think it’s due diligence for us to be prudent enough to carry our weapons in our official capacities.”
A Minnesota State Senator and his wife were also wounded in that attack in June. The suspect was arrested after a statewide manhunt and is currently facing charges including murder and attempted murder.
Lindsey then touched on the fact that if voters approve the proposal on the November ballot, city council would then have to draft legislation and take action on it after the election.
“And in my mind, council should vote as the people directs,” Lindsey said. “That’s why I put it to the people. We have had things before that council couldn’t decide on, and we put it to the people and let the people decide what they wanted in their town. And if it fails, then that’s the end of it. It’s dead in the water, so to speak.”
If the measure passes, the City Council would still need to take action on legislation after the November vote.
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