HORSE FEATHERS I feel a whole lot safer since I can now officially carry my gun into a gas station convience store when I stop and get gas. I would LOVE to be able to carry when I went out to eat at Appleby's or like places. I don't drink so why should I be penalized. What part of SHALL NOT INFRINGE don't these yahoo's understand...never mind they don't understand it at all.

One plan would allow people with gun permits to carry a handgun into a restaurant that sells alcoholic beverages, which is currently prohibited. . . .It is now legal for a permit holder to carry a weapon into a market that sells alcohol for off-premise consumption. . . . Bar fights and handguns are a bad mixture. To say it makes it better to pack a loaded pistol into the restaurant defies common sense.

Note how the author talks about "bar fights" and restaurants in the same paragraph, as if drunken brawls are always breaking out at the local Olive Garden.

Why shouldn't I be allowed to carry a weapon in a place where alcohol may be present? I don't drink and I don't get into fights. However, I do take my family to restaurants where others may be drinking. If the mere presence of alcohol makes those places as dangerous as the author implies, I must be allowed to carry a weapon for protection of myself and my family.

I would make a counter-proposal to the good people of Tennessee: Treat CCW like driving. Make it illegal to drink and carry a weapon, just as it is illegal to drink and drive.

bump

"Advocates of more lenient gun laws have the perfect recipe for creating Old West saloon shootouts in Tennessee."

Sounds like a good reason to repeal as many anti-2nd amendment laws as possible – gunfights in the Old West were rare, regardless of what Hollywood portrays. Shootings are nearly a daily occurrence in Newport News, and the shooters aren't permit holders.

One Napoleonic-tyrant thinks no one should (concealed) carry a weapon and logorheatically argues his case. Logophile disagrees and argues that no one should drink and carry a weapon.

It appears to be an argument over who gets to be tyrant all the whilst the Second Amendment says "...shall not be infringed." Why is "Congress shall make no law..." preventing the expression of tyrannical opinion so much stronger than the self-same document's prohibition of infringing on the right to keep and bear arms?

The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.

And how many of the shootings were done by people without CCW permits?

Unless they were attacked, the number is probably less than .001% of all shootings.

A fact that the anti-gun idiots fail to mention!

As a former Law Enforcement Officer, I have seen firearms cause unnecessary problems at restaurants that serve alcholic beverages. Those problems were for TRAINED LEOs. The "restaurants" were really bars that serve food as opposed to the other way around. It would therefor be necessary to distinguish between Bars with Food and restaurants with a bar. Let the Restaurants request an exemption from the carry laws and then the state approve them. I doubt that the "restaurants" as opposed to restaurants will want firearms on the premises. I think they have some "rights" too.

You fail to examine the question as to how many, if any, of the people that you say caused problems actually had a CCW permit.

Care to comment?

>To say it makes it better to pack a loaded pistol into the restaurant defies common sense. <

Obviously, the author has learned nothing from the Waco Luby's massacre where two individuals left their weapons outside in their automobiles and had to look on helplessly while members of their families were slaughtered along with many others.

People who fail to learn from history are bound to repeat it.

It simply amazes me that by advertising that "weapons are not allowed" . . . the location of the least likely place to encounter resistance and hence, increase the chances for a successful robbery or other kind of criminal activity is publically stated.

Churches, bars, restaurants, schools, stadiums, the Olympics are all easy pickings for the criminals who don't obey the laws anyway but the law-abiding citizens purposely are left defenseless.

Pass another law . . . I am sure that the criminals will respect it!

And how many of the shootings were done by people without CCW permits?

Unless they were attacked, the number is probably less than .001% of all shootings.

In 1987, when Florida enacted such legislation, critics warned that instead of the "Sunshine State", it would become the "Gunshine State". Contrary to the critics predictions, homicide and violent crime dropped faster than the national average. Further, through 1997, only one permit holder out of the over 350,000 permits issued, was convicted of homicide.
Kleck, Gary Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, Walter de  Gruyter, Inc., New York, 1997

"What we can say with some confidence is that allowing more people to carry guns does not cause an increase in crime. In Florida, where 315,000 permits have been issued, there are only five known instances of violent gun crime by a person with a permit. This makes a permit-holding Floridian the cream of the crop of law-abiding citizens, 840 times less likely to commit a violent firearm crime than a randomly selected Floridian without a permit."
"More Permits Mean Less Crime..." Los Angeles Times, Feb. 19, 1996, Monday, p. B-5

Courtesy of gunfacts.org.

Facts never seem to get in the way of people who advocate an agenda!

Bump. You most certainly will not get an argument from me. ;-)

Posted and e-mailed to letters@tennessean.com

In reply to "Bad ideas on guns" Opinions, 12/29/01.

"Old West Shootout" is Sarah Brady's Bunch's (there are so many off-spring that this label will have to do) jargon for a hypothetical event that has not occurred in any 'shall issue' state. Further, the use of this jargon reveals this writer as a diningenuous acolyte rather than a concerned citizen.

There is vast experience now with the potential risks of liberalized weapons laws. Some state has likely already enacted just these provisions against which Mother Brady rails. As a class weapons permit holders are amongst the best behaved and most law abiding. No legally carried gun has been used in a school-shooting. An alcohol related carry prohibition will not affect the rate of incidents of bad judgement since these will occur with or without laws.

I commend to the attention of this Mother Brady and any interested reader, Dr. John R. Lott's More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws (U. Chicago, 1998 ISBN: 0-226-49363-6). Dr. Lott establishes the case for liberalized gun laws as crime preventative. Everywhere Dr. Lott's logic has been used crime is affected to the benefit of good citizens. The conspiracy of ignorance masquerades as common sense.

They were COPS! Better trained than any CCW. LEO = Law Enforcement Officers.

"Old West saloon shootouts in Tennessee. "

Wow! the Old West Shootout lie in the first paragraph. That didn't take the idiot very long to drag that garbage out.

Abnormal reactions such as yours is why the pro gun people are viewed as NUTS. Try to be rational on how to accomplish what you want in a rational, safe manner and you will win. Go with blanket stuff and whackop replies and you WILL LOOSE.

" Better trained than any CCW."

Quote your source for that comment.

After the attention in recent years to the need for school safety, how can any rational person justify carrying weapons onto school grounds?

Maybe the case of the school principal who stopped a teenager with his own gun he retrieved from his car - the kid had killed a few others at the school and was on his way elsewhere when the man stopped him - but this probably wouldn't change any minds among anti-gunners. Too bad they don't publicize more of the cases where a legally owned pistol thwarted a crime.

I guess this writer would rather have a citizenry made of sheeple.

Do mean to imply that only LEOS should be allowed to carry concealed?

I'd much rather see it be illegal for any blood alcohol content while carrying. Seems pretty reasonable, given the statistics for CCW permit holders being reasonable law abiding people. I don't know of many CCW holders who think of themselves as cops and go around looking for a reason to pull a gun on some weirdo.