The Missoula City Council seems to be intent on passing a city ordinance that would require background checks on gun sales and transfers within city limits.

This noble intention could well be the poster child for futile gestures. Whether legal or not, it will have no impact on the ability of Missoula residents to obtain firearms.

We’ll start by acknowledging that the Daily Inter Lake is a vociferous supporter of the Second Amendment, which doesn’t just say that people have the right “to keep and bear arms,” but more particularly that the right “shall not be infringed.”

That means any law to restrict access to firearms is suspect.

The Missoula ordinance would take advantage of a state law (MCA 45-8-351) which says that local municipalities may not “regulate the purchase, sale or other transfer, ownership, possession, transportation, use or unconcealed carrying of any weapon” EXCEPT for a few specific reasons, including “to prevent and suppress... the possession of firearms by convicted felons, adjudicated mental incompetents, illegal aliens, and minors.”

The Missoula proposal is based on that exception, and thus may meet the requirement of meeting the test of state law. It remains an open question to some extent, however, whether or not mandatory background checks are a prohibited infringement of the right to keep and bear arms. It is also worrisome that the ordinance is piggybacked on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and thus surrenders authority to a federal system that could be manipulated at any time to broaden restrictions on, for instance, “adjudicated mental incompetents.” Remember, this is a federal government some of whose leaders say that denial of climate-change orthodoxy is a mental illness.

But even more concerning is the fact that the Missoula council and many residents of Missoula seem to be of the mind that this law will actually keep them safer. Perhaps, they have a mistaken sense of how hard it is to leave the boundaries of Missoula and step into unincorporated Missoula County.

We envision a cottage industry in gun shows and gun shops sprouting up in Frenchtown, East Missoula, and other communities beyond the control of the Missoula City Council.

One things is certain: Determined felons, minors, mentally incompetent people and illegal aliens will have no problem obtaining firearms despite this law.

The rest of us — the law-abiding folks, Montanans who value their heritage and their liberty — are the ones who be burdened by the proposed ordinance.