Town with Quaker roots draws up plan urging guns

GREENLEAF, Idaho – The most violent crime in the past two years was a fistfight in this small town between the Owyhee Mountains and mint fields. The Canyon County town along the Oregon border was founded by pacifist Quakers, who still maintain a meetinghouse here.

But some city officials are urging citizens to protect their homes with guns, and they’re hoping to write it into law.

As county growth pushes west and Greenleaf is about to have a subdivision, City Councilman Steven Jett is pushing an ordinance that would make this the city’s official position on guns: Buy them.

“We want to make it less comfortable for a criminal,” Jett told the Idaho Statesman.

Jett served as the county’s deputy sheriff for four years and is now director of the Southwest Idaho Juvenile Detention Center.

He is pushing Draft Ordinance 208 as part of a proposed emergency preparedness plan, asking homeowners to buy a gun and receive proper firearm training. The rule is modeled on a 1982 law passed in the town of Kennesaw, Ga., requiring each head of household to keep at least one gun.

Jett said the council toned down the rule’s original language, which would have made gun ownership mandatory. The council will gauge public response at an Oct. 3 meeting and then determine whether to vote on the gun rule.

“If I get the entire town saying, ‘No way,’ I will back off,” said Jett, who said he has had mostly positive response to the ordinance.

Greenleaf, population 862, was named after Quaker poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier, and the 100-year-old Greenleaf Friends Church counts about 200 practicing Quakers as members.

The religion preaches nonviolence, which would lead Greenleaf Quakers to oppose gun ownership, Pastor Alan Weinacht said.

“It’s hard to love your neighbor as yourself and prepare to fight him at the same time,” he said.

Doug Garner has lived here for 20 years. The worst crime he remembers was vandalism. Still, he won’t oppose the ordinance.

“I have no objection to it, but we don’t exactly have a crime wave out here,” he said.