The continued debate

Andy Couch has been doing a great job in keeping all of us informed and up to date on what’s happening around the Valley both in the sportfishing and personal use fishing arenas. Other than my recent excursion into the surf fishing topic, I try to avoid talking fishing when Andy is submitting columns because he is so much better informed than I am.

So, having said that, I’m going to go in an entirely different direction here, and it’s oftentimes considered a controversial topic as well. Let’s talk guns!

The COVID pandemic and the push to defund police departments across the nation has sparked a lot of fear among the public. The overwhelming wave of illegals, many of whom are gang and drug cartel criminals crossing our southern borders, has further caused a lot of fear among Americans living along these borders. The past year’s rioting across the country has caused a fear for personal safety because of a lack of demonstrated ability from law enforcement to stem the riots.

And, let’s be honest, many folks don’t trust the federal government’s constitutional obligation to protect the people’s right to “keep and bear arms,” given the President’s position that crime control means gun control. Making guns illegal only affects the law abiding and not the criminals, who should be punished for misusing firearms.

People have lost faith in having the ability to live a secure life with appropriate “protection” from the law enforcement community. This lost faith is brought about by political pressures and a differing view in how our governments should function and is not a reflection on the ability of our law enforcement community to do their job.

The natural reaction of folks in fear for their lives and knowing law enforcement will, in many instances, not be allowed to answer their calls for help, has resulted in, literally, millions of folks buying firearms for use in protecting their families and themselves. Many of these folks are first time gun owners. I would recommend to these folks to get some training in the safe and appropriate use of a firearm in self-defense.

I was recently reading about some of the numbers of gun sales by state and a few things jumped out at me. But, first, some background. The numbers come from the NICS background check data collected by the FBI. NICS stands for National Instant Criminal Background Check System and is the system used whenever a person buys a firearm from a federally licensed dealer. Other sales do take place between non-licensed folks, but the NICS system gives a good low-end estimate of how many guns are sold each year.

Gun sales through 2020 were 39,695,315 – the highest number since this recordkeeping system began. That 39+ million number was a 40% increase over the previous year. Through June of 2021, the number of guns transferred through the NICS system has already reached 22,243,220.

In a breakdown by state for 2020, I was expecting to see gun friendly states like Texas, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Montana, and Wyoming be the leaders in sale numbers. Yet the number one state for gun sales in 2020 was Illinois with over 5 million guns transferred. Indiana also had over one million guns sold. Only one other state topped a million sales and that was Kentucky.

These numbers are obviously influenced by population levels, but California only had 643,982 sales with New York having 211,575. The surprise to me was that Illinois is not known for its gun friendly laws, but rather for its weekly murder rate in Chicago.

So where does Alaska rank? Remember, we have a small population, and many residents are already gun owners. Just looking at background check numbers, Alaska has 42,078 and ranks higher than six other states and the District of Columbia. One of those states was Wyoming and another was North Dakota.

Alaska tends to march to its own drummer, but what affects the rest of the country does eventually influence Alaska to a greater or lesser extent. Political ideologies, legislation at the federal level, and social unrest in the Lower 48 is at least discussed if not actually experienced here. This is a disturbing time.

On a brighter note, I found and purchased two surf casting rods and reels last week in what I thought was a good deal. They weren’t cheap, but they didn’t break the bank either. Now all I need to do is go “prospecting” for a good place to go fish that isn’t too far away.