APROPOS: The gun is innocent in all of this

The horrific scene from Las Vegas Sunday night ripped across the television screen taking aim at yet another piece of America: country music and its fans.

An outdoor venue – a place packed with more than 22,000 concert-goers; a place where we apparently wrongly assume we are safe from violence – was turned into a killing field with what President Trump has accurately labeled, “an act of pure evil.”

Agreed. It is pure evil to decide it is acceptable to shoot multiple weapons from an upper level hotel room aiming down on innocent people whom have done you no harm.

Alaska is not immune from what occurred so many miles away. One of our own – a commercial fisherman living in Anchorage – died from bullet wounds.

A vigil in his honor – and in the honor of the other victims – was held Monday night at Loretta French Park in Chugiak.

Most likely, some of what comes in the aftermath of this tragedy won’t be too different, either. If nothing else, hopefully reading it is therapeutic for those who are distressed – myself included – by seeing these scenes unfold and who are fatigued by hearing the words “gun violence” instantaneously being tossed about to describe what has occurred.

Guns themselves do not kill.

People misusing guns are what kill.

A gun is a tool. It is a tool that commands respect from its user. It is a tool for which appropriate use requires training followed by discipline to practice that training. That is it.

Similar to any other tool put in our hands, humans have the option to either use it properly or to misuse it. In my opinion, the “misuse” could also be labeled as “abuse” – that is abuse of the firearm and abuse of the Second Amendment.

My support for the Second Amendment is only rivaled by my belief in the First Amendment.

When events such as Las Vegas occur, the Second Amendment is what I cling to.

It states that the citizenry has the right to bear arms.

It does not state that the citizenry has the right to go on a shooting spree.

Attack on the Second Amendment and attack on this nation’s current gun laws – which provide a more than adequate framework for controlling firearms – is not an effective response when criminal activity such as shooting into a crowd of concert-goers occurs.

Yes, the loss of these 59 lives is horrid. That number may grow before the end of the week as some of the 500 receiving treatment for their wounds may possibly not recover. Certainly I am hopeful against such, but reality is what it is. Yes, the chipping away at our peaceful existence in this country that is represented by such an attack on an outdoor concert is also horrid.

But what will add insult to injury is if we as free American citizens do not speak up and stand firm against what seems to always follow next: A further chipping away at the freedom this nation stands for; a further chipping away by placing blame where it does not belong.

I repeat: the gun is innocent in all of this. The gun did not kill.

While I won’t support any further restriction regarding gun ownership or the type of guns that Americans can own, I can accept this: Perhaps the time has come for the nation’s hotel system to be allowed to do the same thing our airport system does.

Yes, conservative Amy just suggested screening at the nation’s hotels and motels.

It certainly would have detected the number of weapons taken into that hotel room during the three to four days prior to this shooting. I’ve read there were 19 guns; I have read there were 24 guns. It seems that screening – such as that already in place at our airports – would have at least prevented the shooter from doing so from that hotel. Probably someone might have questioned why one man needed that many firearms in his hotel room.

Ah, yes, I know, Pandora’s box was just opened with this idea that hotel guests undergo screening. Plenty of backlash existed when the Transportation Security Administration increased its level of intrusion at the airports and today we accept its work for our safety.

Perhaps this nation’s lodging system requires the same.

The addition of storage vaults at hotels and motels is another suggestion. Mandatory storage of firearms in a locked on-site vault that a traveler carries with him or herself would honor the Second Amendment while facilitating a greater measure of safety within the nation’s lodging system.

Hotel and motels are privately owned places of businesses at which restrictions such as mandatory storage of firearms in a locked gun vault would be valid.

It is far from a perfect solution. But it is a solution.

Its implementation would go some distance in solving some of this nation’s other problems: a slow economy and unemployment.

I have not done the math on the economic impact this type of retrofit of the nation’s lodging system would create, but it does not take much thought to recognize it would be significant.

Requiring attendants 24/7 that would check firearms in and out of on-site gun vaults would add to the number of those employed. The training required for attendants would also increase economic activity.

I am a gun owner. If I wanted to bring my firearm with me on vacation, paying to properly store my firearm of choice at a lodging facility would, for me, just need to be another part of the cost of going on vacation. It is what it is.

Will mandatory screening and gun vaults at every motel or hotel prevent all shootings?

No, of course not.

While I am a major proponent of gun-safety training for all; while I am big supporter of target practice so that gun owners can improve their skills – even those things will not prevent this type of shooting.

The only thing that stops this from happening is something so personal it is nearly impossible.

It is a sense of personal responsibility and a moral compass that guides each person away from the frustrations and misguided mental processes that pave the way for someone to justify this type of activity.

Unfortunately, that is a person-by-person process that government cannot possibly legislate.

It is up to each of us to remain vigilant to the signs that someone is not okay.

And in the meantime, accept only those solutions that create the smallest – if any – infringement on our collective rights as Americans.

It is time for screening at our nation’s lodging facilities. It is what it is.

Amy Armstrong is an Eagle River-based freelance writer.