SOUTH OF THE BORDER
GUNTER, LORNE
SOUTH OF THE BORDER by Lorne Gunter TO THE EYE, LITTLE CHANGES when you drive south over the border from Alberta into Montana. There are billboards advertising cigarettes, an enticement Canada's...
...And it is a bracing reminder—even to a teetotaling non-hunter from north of the border—of what it means for a legislature to take self-government seriously, and trust its citizens to act as responsible adults...
...The transportation bill that cleared Congress just before Memorial Day takes aim at the handful of recalcitrant states like Montana that don't outlaw open containers...
...However, if he is prepared to wear his pistol where all can see, no permit is required...
...Pay a token two-dollar fee for a one-night membership, and bet and bluff in peace...
...Judging by this year's highway bill, that understanding has begun to fade...
...Finally, Montana is—for the time being, at least— an open-container state...
...The offense is driving while drunk, not drinking while driving...
...Indeed, being able to uncap a Bud wherever one chooses is an important symbol of freedom...
...During daylight hours there is no posted speed limit on the state's major highways...
...Lorne Gunter is a columnist for the EDMONTON JOURNAL...
...Still, some things are different...
...And paved shoulders are rare...
...Sipping Chablis in the back of a Volvo would be legal, too...
...Nor does drinking from that bottle while driving 90 and fondling the Smith & Wesson tucked in one's boot...
...But this is Montana, and such behavior is not an issue...
...A Canadian senses it in his bones...
...Montana is also a right-to-carry state...
...I point this out as a concerned neighbor...
...Never mind that highway repairs and improvements might well save more lives than banning open containers...
...Since the lifting of speed limits in 1995, following 21 years of federally imposed maximums, average speeds have increased by less than three miles per hour and fatalities have continued their 25-year decline...
...Beer and wine are available in grocery stores, and there is no statewide closing time for bars, both of which facts seem exotic to a Canuck...
...And long before governments in the rest of North America (Nevada excepted) twigged onto gambling to supplement their revenues, Montana had legal poker clubs...
...It means looking out for one another without being told, including choosing not to abuse freedoms that might endanger others...
...A chunk of federal highway-construction funds is to be redirected to "safety programs" in those states that fail to prohibit open container...
...Having an open bottle of beer in the cab of a pickup violates no state law...
...Being a neighbor means more than living next door...
...Despite its gun laws (or perhaps because of them), Montana has murder and crime rates well below the national average...
...And the rate of alcohol-related traffic deaths is nearly the same as the national average (43 percent versus 42 percent...
...Possession of such a high-powered handgun in Canada is punishable by up to 10 years in jail (no, really...
...But the pop-top, aluminum emblem of liberty is in jeopardy of being banned from the cabs of Big Sky pickups...
...Gov...
...Then there's guns...
...There's Montana's "Basic Rule," for one...
...Nor is liquor taxed to discourage consumption, as it is north of the 49th parallel...
...Otherwise, undulating grassland is undulating grassland...
...Montanans have chosen to pay for asphalt only on that part of the road they actually drive on...
...Marc Racicot is fond of saying, "Montana is what America used to be...
...There are billboards advertising cigarettes, an enticement Canada's rulers have judged their subjects too gullible to view...
...Most Februarys, Snappy Sports Senter in Kallispell holds a used Magnum sale...
...Drivers are asked to be "reasonable and prudent," a speed the state highway patrol pegs at around 90 m.p.h...
...The Republican Congress that lifted the federal speed limits in 1995 and allowed the states to write their own laws understood the difference between Alberta and Montana, between paternalistic Canada and the freedom-loving U.S.A...
...Any adult without a criminal record or a graduation certificate from a lunatic asylum must be issued a concealed-weapons permit if he requests one...
...when the road surface is bare and dry...
...They advertise it on the big illuminated sign out front...
...The point is to force states like Montana to change laws that respect local culture and levels of self-reliance to satisfy the harridans of far-off safety lobbies and their cause-of-the-moment friends in Washington...
Vol. 3 • June 1998 • No. 38
