Some 35 gun-rights activists gathered October 21 outside the Glendale (Ariz.) Public Library’s Velma Teague branch to protest having to check their weapons at a police station before entering any public facility. Glendale officials instituted the policy in June as their interpretation of a state law that allows communities to bar firearms from public facilities, including public libraries, only if gun owners check their weapons first. The protesters resent having to go to the police station to retrieve their checked guns.
“If they are going to go down that route, they should at least accommodate the rights of the citizens,” Morristown resident Henry Bowman said in the October 22 Phoenix Arizona Republic, and suggested that the library offer lock boxes. But Glendale spokesperson Jerry McCoy told the paper that the city was only trying to protect librarians and other employees who aren’t professionally trained to handle firearms.
In defiance of the policy, several gun-carrying people tried entering the building with their weapons but were stopped by police.
Posted October 30, 2000.