Teeth for Preemption

All the UAA banter has made me think about our preemption statute. I think it is pretty good, in general. However, I think it needs teeth. You can go over to Snowflakes and read about Lost & Stolen ordinances in PA that violate the state preemption laws. You have to play whackamole with these popup challenges that leads to many costly legal battles.

Sec. 29.35.145
"(a) The authority to regulate firearms is reserved to the state, and, except as specifically provided by statute, a municipality may not enact or enforce an ordinance regulating the possession, ownership, sale, transfer, use, carrying, transportation, licensing, taxation, or registration of firearms.
(b) Municipalities may enact and enforce ordinances...
(4) prohibiting the possession of firearms in the restricted access area of municipal government buildings; the municipal assembly shall post notice of the prohibition against possession of firearms at each entrance to the restricted access area.
(2) "restricted access area" means the area beyond a secure point where visitors are screened and does not include common areas of ingress and egress open to the general public."

I think you could head a lot of that off by amending our preemption statute and adding one item:

"Any public official who enforces or promulgates a restriction in violation of AS 29.35.145 or AS 18.65.778 shall be guilty of a Class C misdemeanor.
(A) For purposes of this statute, 'public official' means any elected or appointed employee or officer of any state, local, municipal, or other public agency or body, including sworn peace officers.
(B) For purposes of this statute, 'restriction' means any law, ordinance, regulation, policy, or any other binding rule."

That would immediately shut down most of these preemption challenges. Right now, there is nothing to lose by challenging the preemption law unless you are actually sued. This would hold officials accountable for following the law by giving it teeth. If a public official created a policy that ignored some other aspect of state law -- for example, they authorized prostitution on campus -- then they would be held accountable for conspiracy. But now there is no penalty for ignoring preemption. If you want it to be taken seriously, then there needs to be teeth. You could argue that this should be a Class A misdemeanor, but a "C" is good enough to get the point across.