Gun Play
New law requires cities and towns to store visitors’ firearms
by Barry Cohen

Scottsdale’s pistol‑packin’ literati will soon have a place to store their six‑shooters when visiting one of the city’s libraries.

In order to comply with one of 20 changes to Arizona’s gun laws that become effective Friday, the city will be installing handgun storage lockers in its public buildings, according to spokes‑person Mike Phillips.

Scottsdale director of municipal security Mark Eisen was unable to estimate when the storage  lockers will be installed because the contract for them doesn’t go out for bid until Sept. 26.

Phillips estimated the cost of the lockers will be about $20,000. When the lockers are in place, no Scottsdale employees will be  handling any firearms or weapons, Eisen pointed out.

“Our employees have been instructed to accompany the person withthe weapon to the storage area,” he said. “The owner will put the weapon in the locker; our employee will lock the locker with a key and log in the owner’s name and the locker number.”

Eisen said that when the owner is ready to leave the facility, he will be required to show identification to get his weapon back.

Scottsdale is responding to  an amended state statute dealing with the storage of  deadly weapons.

The new law, which goes into effect Sept. 22,  requires state, regional and local governmental bodies that prohibit persons from carrying weapons into their buildings to provide secure, temporary storage for those weapons.

Storage lockers will eventually be installed in all of Scottsdale’s 40 public facilities, said Eisen. He added that weapons lockers have been available at city hall for the past year.

Carefree has used free‑standing pistol storage boxes at its court facility for years, according to town administrator Jonathan Pearson. Similar boxes will be used to hold weapons carried into town hall, but Pearson wasn’t certain where the locked boxes would be stored.

“Actually, we would prefer that people don’t bring guns in here,” he said.

Cave Creek Marshal Adam Stein said he wasn’t aware of the new weapon storage law.

“In the five years that I’ve been here, no one has asked us to store a weapon for them,” he said.

“If they did, either I or the deputy marshal would take the gun and lock it in one of our safes.”

Doug Little, owner of Scottsdale‑based Armed Personal Defense Institute, a firearms safety and personal protection training organization, said he doesn’t think the new requirements are going to be widely adopted throughout the state.

“The big question is, how is the law going to be enforced if a city or town doesn’t provide storage facilities?” he asked. “The big test will come when someone walks into a public building without storage and insists on keeping his weapon.”

The revised law absolves the owner of public buildings and employees from liability, except in cases of gross negligence or where the intent was to cause injury or gross negligence.

Little, however, thinks that language is subject to interpretation and puts towns and their employees at risk if something does go wrong.

“I don’t think the legislature thought about the ramifications of the storage law,” he said. “Who is going to be responsible if the storage locker isn’t secure and someone is injured?”

Reach the reporter at barry@thedesertadvocate.com.