1 month later, only holes are in anti-gun argument
Commentary by Phil Valentine
Is it safe to go back to the restaurants? Has the smoke cleared?
It's almost been almost a month since the law allowing gun-carry permit holders to carry in bars and restaurants if they're not drinking, and I haven't heard of even one violent incident. Have you?
I've scoured the Internet, searched television, radio and newspaper Web sites. Nothing. Seems like I remember Nashville restaurateur Randy Rayburn saying just before the law went into effect, "In Tennessee, we apparently are going to have 225,000 vigilantes shooting in bars." Randy's an old friend of mine, and I have the utmost respect for him as a restaurateur, but he was wrong on this one.
As was Adam Dread, another old friend. Dread feared some drunk would take a gun from a carry permit holder. Seeing as how nobody knows the vast majority of permit holders are packing, I don't see how that's even relevant to the argument. Dread also worried about the impact on tourism. There are 37 other states with similar laws on the books, and there's absolutely no indication it's had any effect on tourism.
Now, I know some of you may be saying that you've seen these hand-made signs on restaurant doors reading, "No Firearms." That's probably why we haven't seen any weapons being discharged, right? After all, criminals can read. If they were intending to get drunk and shoot up the place, they would naturally think twice once they saw one of those intimidating signs on the door.
We really ought to make some of those up for the banks. I bet if we put some "No Firearms," or better yet, "No Bank Robbers" signs on the door, those criminals would just go back to their cars and go home.
I would submit to you that restaurants that post these silly signs are in more danger of getting robbed or seeing some kind of violence. Let's use some common sense for just a moment. If you posted a "No Firearms" sign in your front yard, do you think you'd be more likely or less likely to be robbed?
But I ask you again, where's the bloodbath that opponents claimed would surely ensue? They claimed that alcohol and guns don't mix, and they're right. That's always been against the law in Tennessee. You cannot lawfully carry a gun and drink in Tennessee. That was never the issue.
The issue was allowing law-abiding permit holders to carry their guns if they weren't drinking. How people thought that was going to lead to more shootings in bars and restaurants is beyond me.
These were the same folks who were crying that Tennessee would become Dodge City if the carry permit law passed in the first place. Did that happen? Of course not.
There's a life lesson here that everyone needs to learn. I understand why some people who are unaccustomed to guns are afraid of them. In the wrong hands, they can be quite deadly.
These people see the news reports about someone else becoming the victim of gun violence and they associate guns with evil. Quite the contrary. Guns are good. If they weren't, every police officer in America wouldn't be carrying one.
According to the National Crime Victimization Surveys, guns are used to thwart a crime nearly 2 million times each year. That's 128 times the number of murders. In other words, guns are used for good far more than they're used for evil, yet there are whole movements dedicated to their extinction.
Back in 1982, the town of Kennesaw, Ga., passed a law requiring every head of household to keep a gun in the house. The story got international attention. Columnist Art Buchwald wrote a piece for The Washington Post predicting routine arguments would be settled in Wild West shootouts. Sound familiar?
What really happened in Kennesaw is the population boomed, and crime plummeted. The town of 5,000 in 1982 is now more than 30,000, and there hasn't been one single Kennesaw resident involved in a fatal shooting since the gun requirement went into effect.
Yes, guns are good; some people are bad. Others are just ignorant.
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