Voters at Falmouth Town Meeting Monday rejected reversal of the plastic bottle ban and passed a bylaw to regulate surplus police assault weapons.
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FALMOUTH — Voters appropriated around $13 million to town needs, created a new bylaw regarding surplus police assault weapons and rejected a petition to reverse the plastic water bottle ban at
town meeting on Monday night.
There were 190 voters at the meeting held at the Lawrence School Auditorium. Here are some of the major issues town meeting voted on:
Falmouth police surplus assault weapon bylaw approved
Voters approved a new bylaw to the Code of Falmouth that mandates surplus police assault weapons be destroyed rather than sold to gun dealers.
In the past, it was a common procedure for the Falmouth Police Department to sell its surplus weapons back to gun dealers as part of deals to purchase new weapons. In May,
the Falmouth Police Department finalized a deal with Hyannis gun store Powderhorn Outfitters to sell Powderhorn over 20 AR-15 semi-automatic weapons to receive credit toward a new purchase.
This spurred a petition drive by Falmouth residents to stop the gun deal. The petition was submitted to the Select Board with more than 300 signatures but it failed to sway town officials. As a result, a citizen's petition was filed by Nan Logan, to create a bylaw regulating surplus police weapons.
On Monday, Logan, who was joined by the Rev. Deborah Warner, said assault weapons should be destroyed rather than put on the open market. They said assault weapons sold back to gun stores could appear in other states, assault weapons are illegal in Massachusetts, and used for criminal violence.
Destroying the surplus weapons is a small answer to rising gun violence across the country, Logan said.
A woman, who appeared to be relatively young, said in support of the new bylaw that her generation lives at a time when school and mass shootings are considered normal. She said she did not want her children to experience the same thing.
Another voter, who spoke against the bylaw, said that nobody in Falmouth was ever killed with an assault weapon and that the police department loses money if they can’t sell surplus weapons.
However, another voter countered this, saying just because no one died in Falmouth because of an assault weapon doesn’t mean more weapons should be put on the street.
The voice vote was resoundingly in favor of the bylaw.
ETA: an article highlighting the Reverend.
Falmouth residents oppose allowing the Police Department to turn in 20 AR-15 weapons to a gun store for credit toward other gun purchases.
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