You have to hand it to Brad Avakian, commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, who wants, very, very badly to be Oregon’s secretary of state. He does nothing if not dream big.

Avakian’s latest dream is about guns. Oregonians, the Democratic candidate tells would-be donors, can count on him to keep them safe from guns. He has, after all, only a 7 percent approval rating from the National Rifle Association while his opponent, Republican Dennis Richardson, has a 93 percent approval rating.

What, you might ask, does the NRA have to do with Oregon’s secretary of state? Not much, actually.

According to the state Constitution, the secretary of state’s office is one largely of record keeping both for the Legislature and the governor. In addition, the secretary is the chief auditor and oversees elections. He or she serves on the state Land Board.

None of which has to do with guns.

That disconnect — between what Avakian says he’ll do and what the office requires — hasn’t slowed the candidate down this year. He’s said he would expand the state’s auditing duties to cover private companies that do business with the state as well as state agencies themselves. He would protect us from nasty polluters, a job that belongs in large part to Department of Environmental Quality, and police workplace pay — something he’s supposed to be doing now and that his BOLI successor might like to tackle.

Voters, meanwhile, might wonder if Avakian would have time to do the very important jobs already assigned to the secretary of state’s office, or if he’d be so busy doing other officials’ jobs that those duties would go undone.