Viola Richardson is just a fraidy cat.
The Council should just declare its meeting hall to be a Gun Free Zone!
Up until the 1980s...nobody ever went to town or city council meetings because they were just too boring. Since the 1980s...because of various budget battles, project battles, property taxation discussions, and TV cable carrying the activity to everyone’s living room....all city council meetings in the US have a wide audience.
From the town where I grew up (400 residents in Alabama)...a couple of years ago, they had a battle over the auxillry police squad, which hadn’t been authorized by the town council but had been put into place by the town’s police chief. For three or four meetings...attendance suddenly went from six people...up to sixty people, and a local TV station sent over a truck to cover this stuff.
Tempers would flare and people would openly make threats against their neighbors. Even with a cop or two in the room....things were fairly tense.