A new suit

Another gun rights group files suit against the Capital Area District Library’s weapons policy. Meanwhile, CADL’s executive director steps down for unrelated reasons.

Posted
Friday, April 29 —The gun rights advocacy group Michigan Gun Owners has filed suit against the Capital Area District Library, claiming a portion of its weapons policy is illegal.

The suit seeks a judge’s ruling that the library is not a school and therefore cannot ban firearms in the library. It’s the second pending case against CADL by a gun rights group.

MGO says in its suit that while “CADL has the right to promulgate a ‘no weapons policy’ with regard to knives, bludgeons, clubs, etc., CADL lacks authority to ban firearms from its locations.”

The third rule of CADL’s “code of conduct” states: “All weapons are banned from Library premises to the fullest extent permitted by law.”

MGO also seeks $25,000 “for so wrongfully having to bring this action as well as all attorney fees and costs,” court documents show.

The case goes before 30th Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, who is presiding over a separate case in which CADL was granted a preliminary injunction against people openly carrying guns in any of CADL’s 13 branches.

“I do believe the library can regulate weapons from coming in or (that) don’t come in,” Aquilina said during a March 8 hearing involving CADL and the gun rights group Michigan Open Carry. “I also feel very strongly we should not have guns where our children and elderly go.”

A second hearing on that case is scheduled for June 6 and 7. Aquilina granted CADL a temporary restraining order Feb. 16 against members of Michigan Open Carry or anyone who acted in concert with them from openly carrying guns into any of CADL’s branches.

Meanwhile, today was CADL Executive Director Lance Werner’s last day in that position. Werner accepted a job offer as executive director of the Kent District Library system in West Michigan.

Werner said the “progressive” Kent County library system is bigger than CADL’s and that the job comes with a pay increase. He said his decision had “absolutely nothing to do with this open carry stuff.”

“I can’t let this opportunity slip by,” he said.


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