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The Sandy Hook shooting has sparked a national debate about guns and gun laws. Alaska has one of the most liberal gun laws in the country. It’s one of four states that do not require a permit for carrying a concealed weapon.

The Alaska State Troopers issue optional permits for concealed weapons. Trooper spokesperson Megan Peters says, even though permits are not required , about 1,500 apply for and receive them each year, mostly because they want to make sure they can carry their guns across state lines.

“We have reciprocity with approximately 36 other states. Where if you have a concealed weapon permit in Alaska you can travel to those other states and they will honor Alaska’s permit. The same thing with people in other states – Alaska will honor their permits if they are on the reciprocity list.”

You have to be 21 to apply for the permit. Peters says there are certain reasons a permit may be denied.

“For example if they have a felony conviction they will be denied a permit. If they have two or more class A misdemeanors in the last six years they’ll be denied. Also if they’re not an Alaska resident, they cannot get an Alaska resident permit. Also you have to have a class, a handgun safety course before you are allowed to get a permit and that’s something we check for before issuing those.”

There is no question about mental illness on the application. Peters says state law prohibits it. Besides that, the state permit is optional. If you buy a gun in Alaska though, you must go through the FBI National Instant Check system or NICs, where all the background checks for Alaska are processed. The background check makes sure the person buying the gun has not committed crimes that would prohibit them from being a gun owner. There is no waiting period to buy a gun in Alaska.

So how did Alaska get the gun law that it has? Former Governor Tony Knowles remembers it was a big fight. He says, when he took office in 1994, a concealed weapons permit was required in Alaska. The law also limited the places that you could take a concealed weapon. But in 1996 all that began to change when legislators started pushing a bill loosening state gun laws.

“For instance, allowing concealed weapons into bars. Completely doing away with the basis for denying an individual the right regardless of their previous felony convictions or if they were adjudicated as mentally incompetent and allowing it into places that had programs for domestic violence and sexual assault and I vetoed the bill,” Knowles said.

But the next year, it came back around again, and he vetoed it again, concerned the bill could allow dangerous people to carry concealed weapons. Those more extreme provisions never passed. But an amended version of the law was enacted over his veto.

“Now, you’re not required to have any kind of permit. Anything goes really is the philosophy of, is the current philosophy of guns in the State of Alaska.”

More troubling Knowles says is the recent move to make it easier to pass an Alaska’s version of a ‘Stand Your Ground’ law, which eliminates the duty to retreat and supports using deadly force in self-defense if you feel threatened. House District 15 Representative Mark Neumen introduced House Bill 80 last session. It passed the house but died in the Senate. Neuman has said he will take the issue up again when lawmakers return to Juneau this session.

The National Rifle Association in Alaska was contacted for this story, but did not return phone calls by deadline.

Speaking in Newtown Sunday night, an unusually direct President Barack Obama made clear, Washington and the rest of the country will once-again engage in a heated debate over weapons.

“In the coming weeks, I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage fellow citizens, from law enforcement, to mental health professionals, to parents and educators, in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this,” he said in a somber high school gym.

Mr. Obama said that any one bill, or any set of bills will not stop future violence.

But Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) will introduce a bill banning the sale of high-capacity magazines. Feinstein, a former San Francisco supervisor and mayor, found the body of Supervisor Harvey Milk after fellow Supervisor Dan White gunned him down inside City Hall in 1978.

A number of pro-gun democrats are saying now is the time to tackle the issue.

“It’s time to move beyond rhetoric. We need to sit down and have a common sense discussion and move in a reasonable way,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) told MSNBC Monday morning.

Former governor Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) told the Richmond CBS affiliate the nation is ready for the dialogue.

“The idea that we can just kind of ignore this issue, I join with the president and, I think, reasonable folks in both parties, and I think the overwhelming majority of Americans who are gun owners who believe that we’ve got to put stricter rules on the books,” he said.

Neither Warner nor Manchin, who both enjoy “A” ratings from the NRA, offered specifics just yet; they say it’s too soon.

Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), like Manchin and Warner, is a centrist with high ratings from the NRA. But unlike his colleagues, he did not commit to reforming gun laws.

“We need to focus on the broader issue of violence in this country and the need for mental health services,” he said Monday as he hurried into the Senate chamber.

Sen. Begich is up for reelection in two years. Though he has an “A” rating from the NRA, the gun lobby did not grant that until after his campaign against former Senator Ted Stevens.

The NRA did not donate money to Sen. Begich’s 20008 campaign, and it hasn’t contributed to his reelection either.

Sarah Bryner, an Alaskan who works as research director for the DC-based Center for Responsive Politics, said it still could.

“This is the first time we’re going to have an incumbent Democrat with a pro-gun record running for Alaska federal office, so it’s a totally new ballgame,” she said Monday night.

With leaders transfixed on averting end of the year fiscal problems, it’s unclear when a gun-control bill will come before Congress.

About two dozen people gathered near the Capital School and Terry Miller Legislative Office building on Saturday evening for a candlelight vigil to remember the victims of the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Attendees held candles and talked about the children who were killed on Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Among other topics, they also discussed the propensity for gun-related violence and the lifting of an assault weapons ban that occurred eight years ago.

Local organizer Larry West says he got the idea for the event from the website MoveOn.org which called for similar vigils around the country on Saturday.

Adam Lanza, 20, is believed to have shot twenty children and seven adults — including his mother — before turning the gun on himself as officers converged on the school on Friday.

 

Juneau School District officials and supporters of the Glacier Swim Club are celebrating the selection of Juneau as the host of next year’s state high school swimming and diving championships.

An announcement on Thursday notes that the Alaska School Athletics Association has picked Juneau for next year’s competition. It’s the first time in over two decades that another venue has been selected outside of Anchorage ‘s Bartlett High School.

Glacier Swim Coach Scott Griffith says as many as forty volunteers will devote their time and effort to successfully hold the meet at the relatively new Dimond Park Aquatic Center in the Mendenhall Valley.

Proponent of the center and swimming parent Max Mertz said in a prepared statement that they told the community five years ago that they would work to bring such meets to Juneau.

“We’re happy that five years later we were able to make this happen,” said Mertz.

As many as 500 people including athletes and their parents, coaches, and officials are expected to converge in Juneau for four days next November. The event will officially run November 8th and 9th, 2013.

Juneau Police are looking for a white man they say may have tried to pick up two Gastineau School students Thursday morning at their bus stop.

Police say the man apparently tried to convince the children that their parents had sent him to pick them up.  The incident happened about 9 a.m. by David Street on Douglas Highway.

Police don’t have an approximate age for the man, but describe him as between 5 feet  8 inches and 5 feet 11 inches tall, medium build, with long black hair pulled back into a ponytail.  He apparently was wearing a top hat and sun glasses, and has a star tattoo on his neck.

He reportedly was driving a white van with front windows and no other visible windows.

Police are reminding parents to talk with their children about the danger of speaking to strangers, and not to get into vehicles with someone they don’t know.

 

Juneau’s weather pattern this week will help Eaglecrest open the Black Bear and Hooter chair lifts on Friday as well as Porcupine chair.

Until this week, most of Juneau’s snowfall has been cold and dry, which does not pack into a base.  But in recent days warmer temperatures have brought wetter snow, filling in some areas, says Snow Sports School Director Jeffra Clough.

“There’s some challenging snow conditions… be very minimal grooming this weekend, just because we don’t have a lot of snow cover yet.”

The city-owned ski area opened the lower mountain beginners’ trails, accessed by Porcupine lift, on December 1st.  Last Sunday, Hooter opened. Clough says the plan for this weekend is to operate Porcupine, Hooter and Black Bear chairs Friday through Sunday.  

“There’s some awesome terrain off that Black Bear chairlift, like East Bowl Chutes, and some more intermediate terrain. It’s not going to be for beginners though.”

The season is still early and hazards exist all over the mountain.  The west side of the mountain that’s accessed by the Ptarmigan lift will remain closed this weekend.