OPINION: Alaska needs common-sense laws to help curb gun violence

I am going to tell you something that you may not want to hear. We have a terrible problem that is claiming an average of 22 Alaska children’s lives per year, puts children in 23% of our households at risk, and affects the mental health of more than 100,000 teens enrolled in our high schools.

The problem is guns. I told you you wouldn’t want to hear it.

Gun violence has long been the leading cause of death for children and teens in our state. Accidental shootings, gun homicides and gun suicides are claiming the lives of our children at one of the fastest rates in the nation. It’s time to address the problem, so we must ask: How are these children accessing these weapons?

The answers lie buried in the results of the 2021 Alaska Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey, which found that 23% of adult gun owners reported that they keep an unlocked and loaded firearm in a home where children are present. The 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey revealed that 25% of Alaska high school students had seriously considered suicide recently, and 49% of Alaskan teens also self-reported that they could access a loaded gun.

This is not the type of world problem we want to be troubling our teens with. As the current stewards of our communities, it is our responsibility to protect our children from preventable harm. We often facilitate this through the passage of laws. Laws requiring that children ride in car seats reduced injuries and fatalities in children from car accidents. The same is possible with reducing gun deaths. A law requiring gun owners to store their firearms locked and unloaded in homes where children are present would prevent at least some of these tragic but preventable gun deaths. And that’s worth it.

In addition to these much more common forms of gun violence that we are all but desensitized to, we also have our children attending schools under the specter of mass shootings, and multiple times Alaska kids have brought guns into their schools. Just last January and this past November, West High had incidents with guns brought to school by students. Also in November of last year, a student brought a gun to Mountain View Elementary. In April of 2022, it was Bartlett High, and in February of that year, Benny Benson Alternative High School. In September of 2019, a loaded gun was brought to Fire Lake Elementary by a child, and in February of that same year, it was Rogers Park Elementary with a 6-year-old carrying a loaded handgun in their backpack. What is it going to take for us to prioritize this and get meaningful legislation on the books? Dare I ask?

We must act to get more adults to secure their firearms appropriately. Secure storage laws aimed at protecting children have been enacted in 23 states and those states are seeing less gun deaths, and it’s not just a correlation. The results are in and the data are clear: Gun laws save lives.

Alaska children deserve a secure storage law. Yes, firearms play a specific role in Alaska culture, so we must thoughtfully craft a law that applies to all of us, from urban city dwellers to the Indigenous Alaskans honoring their traditional way of life. We can come together and find a solution that makes sense for Alaska. Contact your legislators and tell them that this is important to you. Honor the Alaskan children that have died from gun violence with this simple, effective action.

No one wants to have these tough conversations, but we have to and it must be now. Otherwise, I dread thinking about what we are waiting for.

April Rochford is the co-leader of the Alaska chapter of Moms Demand Action, a nonprofit group fighting against the proliferation of gun violence in America.

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