By LINN MCCABE
Why do the leaders of Alaska Gun Rights attack conservative, obviously pro-2A legislators such as Representative Mike Cronk, Speaker Cathy Tilton, Representative Kevin McCabe, and many others?
See some of their attacks on their website; similar information and memes are being boosted on social media just days before the Primary election on Aug. 20: https://alaskagunrights.org/news/ and https://alaskagunrights.org/wall-of-shame-hb61/
Alaska Gun Rights (AGR) is a local offshoot of National Association of Gun Rights (NAGR), an organization which considers itself to be to the right of the NRA. Their board consists of L. Richard McClure, Jerad McClure, and Pat Martin.
Jerad McClure is David Eastman’s legislative secretary, and Pat Martin is Eastman’s best friend and stalwart defender of anything Eastman does, no matter how ridiculous or unethical.
AGR is particularly angry at a group of legislators who have decided they do not want to support some of the silly amendments that Representative Eastman puts forth, and they have chosen HB61 as their vehicle to beat up on these legislators. See my previous article about the tactic of punishing legislators who do not march in lockstep with the “champion:”
House Bill 61 was House Speaker Cathy Tilton’s bill, a flagship bill of the NRA, and was passed last session. Significantly, she offered it three years ago and it was supported in a big way by both Eastman and AGR. HB 61 sought to protect gun rights from government intrusion in the time of an emergency.
It was known as the anti-Berkowitz bill, and was intended to prevent mayors and officials from closing down gun stores in an emergency, such as what happened in Anchorage during the Covid pandemic in 2020. What AGR takes issue with is that this bill (now law) does allow for the closing of gun shops and ranges. However, what AGR and McClure neglect to say is that the resulting law only allows for such closures if all other businesses are closed as well. The rest of the bill put into statute that the government cannot otherwise interfere with your firearms rights.
So what happened? Why did AGR and Eastman remove their support of this bill? The apparent answer is that they didn’t care as much about the bill or, in fact, your 2A rights, but rather they seek to publicly punish Republicans that they feel do not align with Eastman in everything he does.
Their goal is to protect their “champion” at all costs, even if this gives the election to someone like Savannah Fletcher, a far left liberal, running against Rep. Mike Cronk for the Senate seat “R” vacated by Sen. Click Bishop. Interesting to note that another opponent of Rep. Cronk in the race for Senate seat is James Squyres, who is the spouse of Eastman’s former staffer, Pamela Goode, who is (also) running for House seat 36, currently occupied by Representative Cronk.
AGR and Eastman came out with their opposition to HB61, which contained verbatim language of a bill which they had previously very vocally supported, after Eastman was not included in the Majority Caucus, and after he was removed from the Judiciary Committee. The result of these decisions were a reduction of points allowed for Eastman’s staff forcing him to decide on number of positions and staff pay. Candidate Pamela Goode lost her job when Eastman excluded himself from the majority; Jerad McClure retained his position.
The opposition to Tilton’s bill, by AGR and Eastman, was pure retribution. They sought to punish her over staff and committee reductions, even though those decisions were not hers to make. Committee assignments are made by the Committee on Committees, and staff decisions are made by individual legislators based on points they are given. Those points are based on committee assignments and caucus membership. Every single legislator knew AGR’s concerted effort to destroy HB61 was punishment for decisions made with respect to Eastman. The blatant political skullduggery by the father of Eastman’s secretary may have actually helped the bill pass.
The senior McClure is active in Alaska Republican Party politics, and his son Jerad is very active in Valley politics. One cannot help but wonder how gleeful the Democrats and anti-2A legislators must be to see his attacks on conservative Republicans. When trying to understand these reprehensible attacks on fellow Republicans, it is important to know the back story; while the feud between NAGR and NRA is part of it, the “punish-those-who-disagree-with-the-champion” mentality seems to be the impetus for this latest round of excoriation of legislators who are all candidates for election or re-election.
In light of the recent decision by the NRA, to endorse Rep. Mary Peltola, candidates/legislators are reluctant to use any NRA affiliation, where it had formerly been worn as a badge of honor. AGR leadership likely feels that they can now attack pro 2A legislators for past NRA support, and especially for HB61.
However, despite the NRA support of HB 61, and despite the new opposition to anything NRA, HB 61 made sense. It makes sense now, and it also made sense to AGR and Eastman three years ago because it prohibits the singling out of gun stores, ranges, and sporting goods stores. So what is the major malfunction of AGR?
Linn McCabe is a nearly life-long Alaskan, and has been a conservative political activist since 2008. She is married to Representative Kevin McCabe of Big Lake, who is currently running for re-election in House District 30.