Thank you, Dermot Cole, for pointing out the hypocrisy of Fairbanks Sen. Pete Kelly's proposed Senate Bill 174, which seeks to allow people to carry concealed on University of Alaska campuses. ("Alaska Senate leaders: We need guns on UA campuses" Feb. 13.) The bill and its supporters contend the university shouldn't be allowed to "abridge the right to keep and bear arms." But they offer no explanation as to why they're allowed to do that very thing in the public's state Legislature.
Such hypocrisy is not limited to Alaska's Senate leaders. Few can forget National Rifle Association head Wayne LaPierre declaring in the aftermath of the Newtown elementary school shooting that "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" while arguing for armed personnel in public schools.
Yet the NRA museum director, in an article titled "How to be a Gun Collector," tells collectors to "keep your guns tied inoperable" when attending a gun show, noting this is a "requirement at the better shows." He further tells collectors to "never bring a loaded gun into a show," even if it's a "legal concealed carry gun."
SHOT Show and Crossroads of the West -- two of the largest gun shows in the country -- prohibit their Second Amendment enthusiasts from bringing any loaded firearm into the shows. Even if state law allows carrying concealed. They both cite safety concerns.
As Crossroads Gun Show explains on their website -- in response to a question of whether an attendee can carry a loaded gun into the show if they have a concealed carry permit:
"We respectfully request that you do not bring any loaded firearm into the gun show. Safety is our Number One Priority, and a safe environment can only be maintained if there are no loaded guns in the show."
Tom Lindsay, a "regular guy who likes guns and shooting" and "support(s) the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms," explains online why gun shows don't allow loaded guns:
"(T)he key to gun safety is awareness. Pay attention. ... (I)t stands to reason (and a casual reading of the news reports confirms) that it is when you combine a lot of vendors, each excited to show their products, with a lot of excited shoppers, and the aisles are full and bustling, that the awareness shifts. Vendors, anxious to demonstrate the latest, overlook Rule 1. They are paying attention, just not to gun safety."
The news reports Lindsay refers to include a June 2014 accidental shooting of a woman by a vendor at a gun show in Orangeville, Pennsylvania, while demonstrating a concealed carry wallet holster, and another gun show accidental shooting death in Cedar Park, Texas, that same month.
I carry open or concealed wherever I lawfully can (concealed in Fred Meyer, open on a hiking trail). When I do, I have a heightened vigilance. Without it, what's the point of carrying? Vigilance requires attention.
So does teaching and learning. College campuses are, and should be, exciting, bustling places. What do we want students and teachers paying attention to?
While I carry and believe in my right to do so, I also have no problem with schools, banks, gun shows and even my state Legislature deciding that my individual right can be abridged in certain environments to ensure public safety. I just think it's hypocritical for one of those institutions exercising that limiting power to prohibit another from doing the same without a persuasive explanation why.
Val Van Brocklin was a state and federal prosecutor in Alaska who now trains and writes on a wide variety of criminal justice topics nationwide. She lives in Anchorage and likes to fly, fish, hunt, hike and kayak.
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