The Second Amendment Foundation has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco supporting the defendant in a Montana case which challenges the federal gun-free school zones law. The case is known as United States of America v. Gabriel Cowan Metcalf.
In 2023, Gabriel Cowan Metcalf, 49, had an initial appearance on a criminal complaint charging him with possessing a firearm within a school zone. If convicted, Metcalf faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $100,000 fine and three years of supervised release, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Montana, Billings. U.S. Magistrate Judge Timothy J. Cavan presided.
According to SAF, Metcalf lives in Billings, across the street from an elementary school. Local police were notified he was carrying a firearm while walking in his yard, and in the neighborhood. He told officers he was patrolling the neighborhood to protect himself and his mother from a stalker against whom she had a protection order. Montana law does not prohibit the carrying of firearms in proximity to a school.
“The Metcalf case is a textbook example of what is wrong with the ‘gun-free school zones’ act,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The law was written as a solution to school shootings, but in the process, it effectively disarms and legally jeopardizes law-abiding citizens who live within a picked-out-of-the-hat 1,000-foot perimeter, or those who simply travel through such areas in the course of their daily business.”
The government alleged in court documents that from Aug. 2 to 17, 2023, the Billings Police Department received multiple calls and weapons complaints regarding Metcalf, who lives at 430 Broadwater Ave., walking on the sidewalk and around the area carrying a firearm. Broadwater Elementary School is directly across the street from Metcalf’s residence. The sidewalk and streets in front of Metcalf’s residence are public property within 1,000 feet from the school and are a “school zone” as defined in federal statutes.
Gottlieb added, “Pick any rural community in the country and you will find schools within close proximity of business districts, supermarkets and gas stations; places visited daily by legally-armed, peaceable citizens.”
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents arrested Metcalf near his residence pursuant to a warrant issued by a federal judge, and executed a search on the residence at 430 Broadwater Ave.
SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut said, “As we explain in our brief, all overbearing ‘sensitive place’ restrictions are an affront to the Second Amendment, and buffer zone laws are in their own special category because they can lead to accidental violations. Overlapping school zones can make it literally impossible for people to legally carry firearms, and this is exactly the situation in Billings, and similar communities all over the country.”
“People living in, or moving through these communities,” Kraut said, “can be charged and prosecuted, permanently costing them their Second Amendment rights. Such restrictions clearly make the law unconstitutional.”
SAF is joined by the California Rifle & Pistol Association, Second Amendment Law Center, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Second Amendment Defense and Education Coalition and Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois. They are represented by attorneys C.D. Michel, Joshua Robert Dale and Konstadinos T. Moros at Michel & Associates of Long Beach, Calif.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas K. Godfrey is prosecuting the case. The ATF and Billings Police Department conducted the investigation.
