By CRAIG CAMPBELL
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution states that we Americans have “the right to keep and bear arms.”
It is a constitutional check on power by the federal government and clearly intended as a means of protection for an individual’s right to self-defense.
It was never intended to be restricted by Congress or the courts to just sporting events and hunting. Today the foundation of the Second Amendment is under attack by progressive politicians and a judicial system that believes the constitution is a “fluid” document that must evolve with the times.
No place is the principle of the Second Amendment’s right to self-defense more basic than when it applies to you, your family, or your property. Law enforcement deters criminal activity and responds when criminal activity occurs.
However, when you have a home invasion, whether to steal property or harm the occupants, it takes several minutes after the 911 call for law enforcement to arrive. Those minutes may make a difference between life and death. In that short interval, Alaskans have the right to protect themselves, using deadly force, if warranted. Alaska is one of several states that have enacted “Stand your Ground” laws, which allows us to defend ourselves from imminent and deadly attacks.
When natural disasters, such as earthquakes, wildfires, tsunami’s, hurricanes, or tornadoes devastate a community, criminals often take advantage of the situation to loot, steal, rob, and in some cases cause bodily injury to innocent victims. During these disasters, law enforcement is stretched thin providing essential public safety. They are often not available to respond to individual calls for assistance. In fact, during a disaster, it is often necessary to activate the Alaska National Guard and the Alaska State Defense Force to augment law enforcement’s protection of life and property.
In these periods, when an emergency declaration has been activated, Alaskans must have the ability to protect their family and property from criminals. We are a constitutional carry state, which means we have the right to use appropriate force when necessary for self-defense. This right is not permitted just during peaceful periods, but also must be preserved during times of emergency declarations. That is not the time our right to self-defense should ever be restricted.
House Bill 61 is a commonsense legislative protection to ensure no governor, Legislature, state agency, or municipality may unconstitutionally prohibit or restrict our right to possess and lawfully use a firearm against any life-threatening event during a declared emergency. To preserve our constitutional rights under the second amendment, HB 61 should become law during this legislative session.
Take action – Let our elected officials know that our right to bear arms is not “fluid” and you support HB 61.
Craig E. Campbell is the former lieutenant governor of Alaska and currently serves as Alaska Republican Party National Committeeman, on the Republican National Committee.
Common sense from this legislature?
Better chance of winning the lottery.
Apparently, we also could use weapons that will take out foreign objects of adversaries flying over Alaskan space because the Feds refuse to do their jobs! What were those things and why don’t we have any answers on that?! >:(
We do have answers. It was a large Chinese military spy balloon that flew over sensitive defense areas. Biden allowed it to make a complete flight over Alaska and the lower US. They waited until it was over the ocean to shoot it down to prevent retrieval.
Your gun doesn’t have a 30000 foot ceiling range.
You don’t know what he’s got access to! Lol.
Yes I do.
You can add in getting rid of the requirement of telling the police if you have a weapon. Just plain stupid and it opens us up to the Barney Fifes of the world.
The second amendment was specifically intended to protect citizens from a tyrannical government. Without the second amendment as a last recourse, none of the other freedoms enumerated in the bill of rights can be guaranteed.
I hate to find myself on the same side as the ‘general’ but this bill is a good idea. Look at what happened during Katrina. Door to door searches that included forced confiscation of privately owned firearms during a natural tragedy that prevented police from being able to protect their assigned areas. We need bills like this one to help protect us from ANYONE thinking they can do the same here. Imagine, in the aftermath of a major earthquake, when there are no cops to call and no communications system to call them with and some local ‘official’ walks into your house and demands that you turn over any and all firearms. That should never be allowed to happen in America.
Already protected. It’s called the 4th amendment
Really? Going down this road again? The people that had their firearms confiscated after Katrina, had them confiscated by cops. Who was going to step in and protect them from looters? The cops?! They were spread to thin as it was and they were to busy stealing firearms from private citizens.
Ok Polly. Call it martial law.
There is no ‘martial law’ simply for a natural disaster. But call it anything you want, it’s un Constitutional. Our personal firearms are protected by the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution specifically for our personal protection during any crisis, natural or man made.
I remember as a kid watching “World at War” and seeing thousands of Jews (eventually millions) being loaded onto cattle cars for the gas chambers. I vowed then I would always own a firearm, but I identify as not owning one.
The Nazis were fearful of mass public rejection from overreaching. The swiss enabled the war effort by financing the Nazi machine and looking the other way as those trains rolled through their country. What you need to know is why the FBI looked the other way when reports of Hitler sightings came in after the war from south America.
Nothing you said in this post has a single thing to do with citizens being protected for forced confiscation of personal firearms.
So. What’s your point?
Craig Campbell you kind of missed the entire point of the Second Amendment. The 2A was specifically written to protect us from a tyrannical government; it’s the last back stop against government. Seems like that is something you might know considering your position in the AK Guard.
This constant attack on gun rights has actually mobilized more people and traditional gun owner to go out and buy more and more weapons,and ammo, so just the threat of taking our guns away has actually added 50 percent more guns being bought and Made since the mid 1990s, theirnintention seems more along the lines of creating more gun ownership and possibly attempting to trigger some kind of push back. The entire thaught process on banning guns is foolish, and I would say good luck to the Fools who are ordered to go gather all these weapons up, and I’d say you can double the estimate that they claim to be, they really have no idea where the bulk of them are.
Who wants a “pushback”? Are you mad? It sounds like you are the one suggesting an event.
During a crisis, sometimes rights need to be temporarily suspended so that cops can protect all of the public. This is done by means of curfews, limiting stolen appliances to one per thug, and yes, gun collecting. Everybody got there guns back that could legally possess them right?
This, ladies and gentlemen is the product of allowing socialism into our midst.
Our Constitution is inviolable. Except in the most narrow of circumstances (actual declared martial law) these rights/regulation cannot be over ruled or negated. This means that ANY official that confiscates firearms for ANY reason, is in violation of the Constitution. We all are bound by that Constitution, whether regular guys or cops. Therefore, firearms confiscation, such as occurred during Katrina, is illegal at the highest level. That’s the legal side of it. The practical side of it is that the cops eagerly confiscating personal firearms leaves the population unable to defend itself. The wider the confiscation the larger the population left defenseless. When left defenseless, the local population is open to attack by pretty much any criminal. But the wider population being left defenseless leaves us open to government takeover. Our founding fathers wrote the second amendment into our Constitution for the purpose of protecting us, the citizens, from them, the government. Imagine if all residents of Louisiana had there firearms confiscated after Katrina, how would they defend themselves from criminal activity? What would their recourse be if the governor had refused to return those firearms? See, to actually complete a true government takeover, you must separate the population from any true means of self determination.
This brings me back to people like Greg here. See how he so easily states ‘sometimes rights need to be temporarily suspended’. This proves to me that Greg won’t defend our Constitution. Since he won’t even argue in favor of our Constitution, he surely won’t physically defend it either. If you live in our country, reap the rewards of our way of life, live in safety because of the armed population, and will not defend the very template of our society, you are not an American. You are a socialist subverting that very Constitution.
You state that you were a teacher, Greg. I put it to you, that you were more dangerous to our children than the principal of Service High. He was doing harm to his family life. What were you doing in the classroom Greg? How many kids did you feed that socialist line to during your career? How many did you convince that they should bow down to anyone deemed an ‘official’ even if they were breaking the Constitution?
You are correct in your assessment, but miss one thing.
We are living in a post constitutional America where both sides of the political spectrum ignore it when convenient.
For the Constitution to actually work, it has to be respected. in most legislative bodies it isn’t.
Jefferson alluded to this scenario when he said the tree of liberty must occasionally be refreshed by the blood of patients.
You’re wrong. Look up what states can do. You’d be surprised.
That’s called licking the boot that’s standing on your face Greg. Are you a defender of liberty or a vanguard of statism? Rhetorical question. In New Orleans people were guarding their homes from looters when the confiscations came. Do you think our natural right to self defense should be at the whim of government officials?
Amen!
“During a crisis, sometimes rights need to be temporarily suspended so that cops can protect all of the public. This is done by means of curfews, limiting stolen appliances to one per thug, and yes, gun collecting………”
I read that several times and remain confused. Are you saying that in times of crisis, thugs should be given the grace of one (but only one) larceny? Just so I can plan after you lobby your brilliant idea, will there be a dollar amount attached to that single larceny? Do you think that might include federally chartered banks?
Would the general gun collecting in unaffected neighborhoods be conducted simultaneously with protecting fire crews from snipers, managing the single larceny per thug looting, crowd control in affected areas, and all the other regular policing activities? Would cooperating citizens get their guns back after the crisis? Would the gun collecting agents go as far as home demolition to find potentially hidden guns? Please describe what this gun collection exercise might look like.
Some of us would like to prepare for your ideal world.
That part was a joke.
I wish everybody thought that would be a joke. They don’t. That’s why I had to ask.
I think nra should alert its members time to
testify in-support, cause i’m not sure if only advertising this legislation on mrak would be enough. As a woman, since we have no rights, i’d feel better living in a state where there is a chicken in every pot, and a gun in every home.
Gregory, the real Crisis is untreated mental Illness/ Drug Use and putting clueless people into powerful positions. Making more and more stupid laws when they can’t even enforce, the Gun laws we have now will not stop this behavior now because the GUNS have nothing to do with this behavior, Let’s be clear, there’s no crisis among 99
Percent of us law abiding people who play by all the rules now , I’d would say maybe try banning many of these over the top whacko educators in colleges and public schools who have indoctrinated and confused many kids in the last few decades. Maybe ban some of this America hating teachings that go on in many of our universities, maybe start teaching kids things that are useful so they grow up having more hope for the future, but no they push all this common core and toxic trash in schools making kids into angry activist, then sending many of them out on paths they will
Never succeed at nothing, the schools, video games and Hollywood along with horrible parenting play huge roles in the development of minds, the Guns have absolutely nothing to do with this stuff, it’s just an easy target and lame excuse for political hacks and dumb people to point a finger at!.
That would Florida
Learn about The Milgram experiment(s) on obedience to authority figures were a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. They measured the willingness of study participants, 40 men in the age range of 20 to 50 from a diverse range of occupations with varying levels of education, to obey a “perceived” authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Participants were led to believe that they were assisting an unrelated experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a “learner”. These fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real.[2]
The experiment found, unexpectedly, that a very high proportion of subjects would fully obey the instructions, with every participant going up to 300 volts, and 65% going up to the full 450 volts.
This experiment shows that “any perceived authority” can convince most of the fools to do very BAD things.
You paying attention Greg ?
Spot on Kev
It’s pretty easy to define those on here who have a problem with authority, any authority.
So questioning authority is bad? Is that correct? So, by your thinking, anytime someone in authority demands that we mere citizens comply with a ruling, you state that we should all just comply, whether it’s Constitutional or not?
I don’t mind being branded as having a problem with authority. That’s because when I have a problem with authority, authority has broken laws or violated the Constitution. Do you feel superior to me because you go along and do as you are told by those you see as in charge?
I have more concerns about people who blindly follow authorities over those who question them.
It’s the attitudinal difference between marching people into gas chambers vs saying what the hell are we doing.
Lol, Kevin, I think Gregory probably was one of the guys in that Study, he probably was the first one to sign off all his rights when they applied the ointment to his temples, I couldn’t help but visualize a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest when I read your very educational Post, But it was probably far to educational for Gregory to understand! so Kevin , Let me barrow your ending comments one more time, are you paying attention yet Greg!! LMAO!
It’s all good. Just enjoy pushing all you “citizens” buttons.
Explain why the term ‘citizen’ is a bad thing.
Hey America! Read the Constitution! ‘They’, the feds work for us. In spite of what the socialist influencers tell us daily, the feds DO NOT legally control us. Their job is to REPRESENT us!
Mr Campbell may be a wonderful person. Loves his family, volunteers in his community, regularly goes to church.
But more and more as I read his commentary something has become obvious.
If he is, indeed, representing the mainstream thinking of the Alaska GOP, we are in worse shape than I thought.
Performance art legislation, weak leadership, and the conviction of limp broccoli.
Alaska’s GOP, like much of the rest of it across the nation, is pointless and impotent. The Republican Party needs to be ended and replaced with almost anything else. The GOP needs to join the Whigs on the ash heap of history.
This bill would be a small step in the right direction. But I’ll take what I can get as the fight progresses.
Not to change the subject but, where is your Public Official Bond, Director Maj. Gen. Craig Campbell as required under As 39.15.010 – 100 ? I am still awaiting your Email response to my Email dated
Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 01:45:26 PM AKST
Dir. Campbell, May you be advised under Alaska Statute 39.15.010 – 100 you are required to have a Public Official Bond. ( NOT COVERAGE BY A INSURANCE POLICY ) for the duty’s of your office .
I request that you acquire such bond. If you have no knowledge of such Bond & its monetary amount ask the Commissioner of Administration Paula Vrana as to her duty by Statute to determine that amount, approved by the Governor & reviewed by the AG. prior to your swearing into office under Oath. There is absolutely no reason to deny this requirement under State Law. This letter serves the power vested in me as the an Citizen under our Alaska State Constitution Art. 1 Section 1 Inherent Rights & 2 Source of Government which requires me to ( have corresponding obligations to the people and to the State.) & All political power is inherent in the people. (NOT YOU Therefore) All government originates with the people ME, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the people (ME & my fellow Alaskans ) as a whole. Cease & Desist your unlawful Performance currently Sr.
Please take action to correct this behavior post haste. Sincerely , Edward D Martin Jr Alaskan Resident of 56 years.
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