Why Isn't the Democrat Party Interested in How Alaska's Mary Peltola Accumulated 176 Long Guns?

Alaska's a state with a lot of gun owners, if you will allow me to belabor the obvious for a moment. Even Democrat politicians here try (with varying degrees of success) to finesse their positions on gun laws, as it's as sure as shooting (hah) that advocacy for gun control means electoral oblivion over most of the Great Land.

Even our at-large Congresswoman, Mary Peltola, has tried finessing her way around this issue. Even though she gets the intent of the Second Amendment horribly wrong, she managed enough finesse to fool the NRA into giving her an "A" rating - a few short years after awarding her a "D."

But let's set the NRA's cluster foul-up aside for the moment. Mary Peltola also recently made an interesting claim: That she owns no fewer than 176 long guns.

Must Read Alaska's Suzanne Downing writes:

To put it in perspective, Peltola claims to have so many guns that to ensure the guns are not stolen, she would have to also have at least 10 of the largest gun safes made. These safes weigh about 750 pounds each and cost over $1,500 apiece. They would occupy an entire room of a house, but could cave the floor in or cause it to sag or settle, if not on a concrete surface. That’s about 8,000 pounds — the weight of two average cars — when you include the shotguns and rifles. It’s unlikely she had gun safes shipped to Bethel, as the shipping would cost more than the safes themselves.
If each of the long guns has an average street value of about $500, Peltola is sitting on $88,000 worth of guns, not counting any handguns she may or may not have.

Those numbers are pretty close; I have a 64-gun safe, and I seem to remember its empty weight was about 1,000 pounds. I would have to have five of these safes to contain Mrs. Peltola's collection. But that's not the interesting point; the real question is, where did they all come from?

It becomes clear that it was her late husband Gene Peltola who was actually the gun collector who arguably amassed one of the largest private collections of guns in the 49th state. He was a hunter. He traded in guns.
Known as “Buzzy” to his friends, he was a federal employee in rural Alaska for most of his career. He worked for U.S. Fish and Wildlife for 34 years, and was state director for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. With his plane, he traveled all over rural Alaska and knew people in all of the villages. He knew where the guns were.
The important thing to know about rural Alaska is that it’s largely a non-cash economy. The currency? Drugs. Booze. Guns. Short on rent? You might offer your landlord a rifle or shotgun. Need repairs on your snow machine? You might offer a rifle scope as payment. Serial numbers are not tracked in rural Alaska and background checks are rarely performed in these arrangements.

While this is a very Alaskan thing to do - and while Buzzy Peltola doubtless knew a lot of people all over the Great Land - this raises some interesting questions.

First: What did Gene Peltola trade for all these guns? We can only speculate but consider that he worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and was state director for the BIA, he was in a position to do a lot of favors for a lot of people. That's not to say that he did anything illegal - just that he was a high-profile, well-known individual, and it's very likely these trades were legitimate. But there is a legal question.

Second: Wouldn't this put him in "the business" of trading, buying and selling guns? The relevant federal regulation, 27 CFR § 478.11 (c), states:

c. Dealer in firearms other than a gunsmith or a pawnbroker. A person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms, but such a term shall not include a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms;

That's the relevant regulation; while trading a shotgun for a snow machine or a pistol for some electrical work shouldn't have some faceless bureaucrat come after someone claiming that they are "in the business," but what about accumulating 176 long guns, through whatever trades or arrangements may have been made?

Now, what's interesting about this isn't the guns or how Buzzy Peltola came into possession of them. I don't care about that, and I doubt many Second Amendment advocates would. What's interesting is that nobody in the Democratic Party is questioning this, when if this had been a Republican who had accumulated 176 long guns by arrangements that the general public is not privy to, the Democrats' hue and cry would be audible from Washington, D.C. to the Canal Zone. Once again, the Democrats have failed to apply the "shoe on the other foot" rule.

In publicity as well as in legal matters, Mary Peltola is learning now the value of that ultimate "Get Out of Jail Free" card - a "D" after her name.