Inappropriate use of authority by a government official is the central theme behind the suspension of Marti Buscaglia, the executive director of the state Commission for Human Rights. Below that, freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, gun safety, racial injustice, mass shootings and more are competing for attention.<\/p>\n
[Chairman of Alaska rights commission quits amid rifle sticker controversy]<\/a><\/ins><\/p>\n And the thread that ties them together is the idea that freedom isn’t free. It always comes with responsibility to the society that grants it.<\/p>\n This story began in an Anchorage parking lot where the commission is located. Brent Linegar, the owner of Sage Mechanical, parked his company truck there. On the tailgate was an image of an AR-15 rifle over the words “Black Rifles Matter.”<\/p>\n After seeing it, Buscaglia wrote on the back of her business card, “Please do not park this truck with that offensive sticker in this parking lot.” It was left on the windshield. Then, turning to the minimally informed pool of jurists on social media, she posted a photo of the truck and sticker on the commission’s Facebook page. The caption asked: “In what world is this OK?”<\/p>\n [Opinion: New Zealand’s quick action on gun control shames the US Congress]<\/a><\/ins><\/p>\n On the main issue, Buscaglia was out of line attempting to establish rules about messages that can be displayed on private vehicles parked there. That it’s a privately owned lot shared by the Municipality of Anchorage made it a bigger mistake. And it was even more egregious if, as reported in the Alaska Landmine, she emailed the property owner implying “Linegar was a racist” and “accused Sage Mechanical of performing substandard work and exercising poor judgment.”<\/p>\n For a public employee responsible for overseeing enforcement of the Alaska’s Human Rights laws, one would expect Buscaglia to know offensive speech is protected by the First Amendment. Further, she should have understood it’s wrong to attach a stereotype to anyone. And she shouldn’t have expected a politically correct censoring act to solve anything.<\/p>\n But let’s not pretend there’s a universally accepted meaning to the sticker. Leingar told the Alaska Landmine he got it at an event “promoting Second Amendment rights and the safe and appropriate handling of firearms.” That may be what he believed it spoke to, but that doesn’t preclude anyone else from seeing a different message.<\/p>\n