At the Anchorage Assembly meeting on Tuesday, the Assembly will consider a proposed ordinance that would expand liability to parents, foster parents, and guardians of minors who bring deadly weapons to school grounds or to school functions. The law might even be applied to babysitters or friends who are taking care of a child while parents are out of town.
The ordinance is being offered by Assemblywoman Karen Bronga, who seeks to amend Anchorage Municipal Code Section 8.25.060
- According to the proposed ordinance, in 2023 5.6% of Alaska students and 3.5% of Anchorage students reported having carried a weapon to school on at least one day in the 30 previous 15 days.
The ordinance explains that any deadly weapon that a child has on school grounds will lead to the prosecution of the parent or guardian, if the parent or guardian had the weapon in their possession originally and didn’t secure it or store it properly, but stored the weapon “in a criminally negligent manner.”
This could apply to an elderly grandparent who is raising children due to some type of family dysfunction or tragedy. A knife taken from a kitchen drawer or a nail gun taken from the garage of that grandparent could qualify, and the grandparent or guardian could be charged as though he or she had brought the knife on campus.
The same could hold true for a boxcutter, hatchet, or other item that could be seen as a deadly weapon.
The ordinance raises constitutional and legal questions.
The Alaska Constitution says, “The individual right to keep and bear arms shall not be denied or infringed by the state or political subdivision of the State.” The Bronga ordinance appears to violate the Constitution by infringing on constitutional rights.
There is also state law that says no political subdivision can have a more restrictive law on firearms than the state itself has in law.
AS 29.35.145 Regulation of firearms and knives says “The authority to regulate firearms and knives is reserved to the state, and, except as specifically provided by statute, a municipality may not enact or enforce an ordinance regulating the possession, ownership, sale, transfer, use, carrying, transportation, licensing, taxation, or registration of firearms or knives, unless explicitly allowed by state law.”
There are very few exceptions to this state statute. Municipalities can enact ordinances that are identical to state law and carry the same penalties as those established by the state, but cannot make the local ordinances more restrictive. Ordinances cannot infringe upon the right to bear arms as guaranteed by the Alaska Constitution.
It’s unclear how Bronga was able to get the Assembly’s legal staff to sign off on an unconstitutional provision that would most certainly draw a legal challenge.
Paying youth members
The Assembly also will vote on making the youth members on the Assembly into paid positions.
Chairman Chris Constant offered the resolution that will pay youth representatives $2,000 each. There are three youth representatives, for a total of $6,000 to be expended.
Youth voter registration drive
The youth members on the Assembly will also ask the Assembly to request that the Anchorage School District hold a voter registration drive to encourage participation in regular municipal elections, which occur in early April. Voter registration drives are uncommon in Alaska since more than 116% of the population is already registered to vote, due to things like automatic registration with Permanent Fund dividend applications and drivers license applications. The effort to register more youth may be seen as yet another distraction from the school district’s core mission of teaching, which it is failing at, by every measure.
The Anchorage Assembly meets on the ground floor of the Loussac Library on 36th Ave., with the meeting starting at 5 p.m. and lasting typically until about 11 p.m.
