I moved to Anchorage in 1973 when I was 19. I bought a beat-up junker of a car and immediately that winter, I had a flat tire on C Street about at 10 p.m. No spare, swirling snow and no idea what to do.
A car pulled up behind me and a man popped out, looked at my predicament and, to my great fortune, pulled a tire from his trunk and rolled it in my direction. “Drop it off at the Hideaway Club when you’re done,” he said, and drove off. I am sure everyone reading this has a similar Alaska story. Some person, unknown to us, stopped and helped us in a time of need.
Which is why I recoiled at Craig Campbell’s op-ed touting HB 61, “An Act relating to restrictions on firearms and other weapons.” This bill, says Campbell, is to stop looters, thieves and assailants during an ill-defined “disaster” by making sure folks have the right not to have their weapons taken away from them.
The implication is clear — buy weapons! Because during a disaster, isn’t that the first thing we should rely on to protect ourselves? Don’t venture out to help others. Don’t let anyone you don’t know enter your property without having a loaded AR-15 strapped around your shoulder. Isn’t it better to shoot first and ask questions later?
What has happened to us? I understand there is political hay to be made by keeping people afraid. Scared folks are easier to manipulate. But what are we losing? Would that man who helped me with the spare tire 50 years ago have even bothered to stop had he been indoctrinated with the hate-filled, fear-based messages that fill our digital airwaves now?
Folks, HB 61 is just wrong. It sends the wrong message to people who are in need and scared. It encourages the wrong actions during emergencies. And it sends us down the wrong path.
It’s just not the Alaskan way.
— Bob Martin
Eagle River
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