Posted on 02/22/2009 12:57:42 AM PST by marktwain
FAIRBANKS — A growing group of Fairbanks gun rights activists will show their support for the Second Amendment today by openly carrying guns.
“We’re going to have an open carry day,” Schaeffer Cox, unofficial leader of the Second Amendment Task Force, said Thursday.
Members of the task force, which he called a “movement” more than a group or organization, will be displaying their firearms openly across Alaska’s second largest city on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays for the next two weeks, Cox said.
“There’s a social stigma that only cops and robbers have guns,” Cox said. “The truth is everybody is packing but nobody knows it because we keep it concealed.”
Cox said he expects about 500 gun owners in and around Fairbanks to participate. The idea sprouted at the group’s last meeting on Monday at Friends Community Church. The gathering attracted a crowd of more than 600 supporters, Cox said.
Fairbanks police Chief Dan Hoffman doesn’t have a problem with gun owners displaying their Second Amendment rights around town.
“There’s no law that prohibits a citizen in the state of Alaska from carrying an open, legal firearm,” Hoffman said. “It’s perfectly legal.”
Hoffman suspects the movement is a result of the election of President Barack Obama, a Democrat whom gun rights activists worry will crack down on gun ownership.
“I think there’s a lot of fear and concern out there with the new presidential administration that gun ownership and Second Amendment rights are going to come under attack,” Hoffman said.
The Second Amendment Task Force was not formed specifically as a result of Obama’s election or a bill — House Resolution 45 — that was introduced in Congress last month and would require a federal or state license to own a gun, among other things, Cox said.
“HB 45 is just one bill,” he said. “This would be an overreaction to HB 45.”
Rather, the movement was spawned from an “ongoing encroachment on the right to bear arms,” said the 24-year-old Cox, who unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the state legislature in November. “It’s a general trend that has been a long time building that has picked up momentum lately.
“It’s definitely not a partisan issue in terms of Democrat or Republican,” he said. “It’s not right versus left. It’s the state versus you.”
The task force hosted its first meeting at Denny’s two weeks ago and about 150 people showed up, even though the meeting wasn’t publicly advertised, Cox said.
From there the movement has snowballed. About 600 people attended a second meeting on Monday, Cox said. He described the crowd as “regular old Alaskans” concerned about their rights.
“There’s a lot of volatile feelings behind this issue,” he said.
As the impromptu leader of the movement, Cox said he’s simply trying to harness the energy behind it in a reasonable but demonstrative way.
“We talked about what’s the proper response for the average wholesome, regular guy,” Cox said. “Someone at the meeting said, ‘Hey, let’s all carry openly.’”
“People were just looking for some leadership on that and that’s what I tried to give them,” he said. “There’s a lot of people just ready to pull the trigger. I have to try to lead those kind of people to understand the importance of temperance.”
The decision to display guns publicly is “kind of a word of mouth thing,” Cox said. “I think it will catch on pretty fast.”
The task force’s next meeting is March 5 at Friends Community Church. Cox said he’s hoping to put together a panel of people ranging from law enforcement and the military to state government and the judicial branch to answer questions about Second Amendment rights.
:-)
Outstanding.
I noticed lots of folks carrying last time I was up there. Of course that was mainly in towns with fewer than 800 people!
LOL! And I’ll bet Fairbanks will be the world’s most polite city for a day.
The hell it's not. The man clearly doesn't understand who liberal Democrats are and what they stand for. It's been that way mostly for the last 75 years, since the time of FDR.
I don’t know if Texas still allows openly carrying guns but when they did people felt much safer I love Texas and miss it.
I’d love to see Governor Palin with a .45 on her left hip (set up for cross draw, so she can cradle Trig in her left arm and draw with her right). The left would go absolutely BALLISTIC!
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