Library District Trustee Wants You Defenseless

Editor’s Note: For more background on the issue, including the legal issues at hand and the past history, please see this post cataloging the relevant articles on the issue.

A Las Vegas-Clark County Library District trustee just stepped all herself, well, figuratively in the library open carry lawsuit case. Only Trustee Shannon Bilbray-Axelrod, also a Democratic candidate for the Assembly, spoke publically. She told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: 

“I think it’s going to be something we’re going to have to take up in the Legislature to make that distinction (regarding where libraries fall when it comes to open carry). [..] I think it was a complete oversight. [...] I worry about open carry in areas where I bring my children, [...] I’ve been going to the library with my daughter since she was 3 months old. It’s a place people would assume would be weapon-free.” 

Instructor Mac said Bilbray-Axelrod's admission that she would like to legislate to make it illegal to open carry in a library is a tacit acknowledgement that what they library district and LVMPD was illegal.

Challenging open carry in a public building by creating a new law, such as a library, with no history of threats or special security concerns, is unlikely to survive in court. Had this been a concern for Nevada legislatures, the matter would have been addressed in the past. In this case, Bilbray-Axelrod is playing partisan politics with citizen’s rights and lives; nothing unusual for a Democrat.

Secondly, Bilbray-Axelrod’s concerns about children are totally unfounded. If she is so concerned about firearms being around her children, she should not take them outside, much less to a store, park, or shopping mall where countless unseen concealed carriers and possibly even open carriers could be present; not to mention armed criminals.  

Libraries are not some sort of magical safe space where danger does not lurk. Time and time again we have seen murderers and terrorists exploit gun free zones to kill unarmed victims. Bilbray-Axelrod would have mothers and fathers defenseless in the face of a killer all because she doesn’t like guns or citizens who can fight back against evil.

So let me get this straight: there have been zero problems (except what LVCCLD did itself) and she thinks there is a problem with the law? The Henderson Library District made the correct decision to follow the law as written. No other library, even those with policies on paper, have made an issue out of open carry.

The law was written deliberately to exclude open carry. With very few exceptions, Nevada and many western states recognize that it is unconstitutional to regulate open carry. Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, just to name a few states, allow the open carry of firearms in libraries. There have been no known incidents of unsafe discharges, abandoned firearms, or other bad behavior by legally armed citizens in any of these states.

Challenging open carry in a public building by creating a new law, such as a library, with no history of threats or special security concerns, is unlikely to survive in court.

It must be remembered that for years the library district has pursued this policy in direct contravention to state law, depriving citizens of the right to bear arms under both the state and federal constitutions. As the recent decision in Peruta v. Gore by the Ninth Circuit District Court of Appeals showed, many court cases have found that open carry is the constitutionally protected method of carry.

A multitude of communications have been sent to the library over the years, so any claim that this was unintentional is a lie. The library’s general counsel, Gerald Welt, stated in a private conversation, later recounted on Facebook, that the library district was aware of the law and would have to be sued. The district is being represented in this case by Bailey-Kennedy.

Bilbray-Axelrod was present when a group of citizens and Assemblywoman Shelton warned the library district it faced a suit if it kept up its illegal behavior. Now the taxpayers are on the hook for the intransigence of these unelected trustees and protected bureaucrats.

Clark County taxpayers out to be shocked and outraged at the willingness of the library district and its trustees to waste public money pursuing an obviously illegal policy and infringing on citizens’ right to effective self-defense.

Nevada Carry's original post breaking the story: Library Has Mom Illegally Arrested for Legal Openly Carried Gun; Suit Filed