defrog: (booze)
defrog ([personal profile] defrog) wrote2009-07-15 04:13 pm

GUNS + ALCOHOL = WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

ITEM [via [profile] warren_ellis ]: Laws have gone into effect in Arizona and Tennessee (my home state) making it legal to carry guns into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

But of course.

To be fair, in Tennessee at least, the law gives establishments the right to opt out and establish their own no-guns rule. Also, the law does stipulate that if yr packing heat, you won’t be served alcohol.

So be sure to do yr drinking before you go out partying, gun owners.

Of course, you don’t have to actually tell them yr carrying. Sure, they might have metal detectors and crap, but hey, there’s ways around that. Ask yr kids for more information.

DISCLAIMER: I’m not particularly in favor of banning guns completely, primarily because I don’t think it would help. That said, I do think the argument for concealed-carry laws – i.e. it deters crime – is based more on fear of the statistically unlikely than any hard reality. I know the NRA likes to point to FBI stats showing a drop in violent crime since the 1990s and that states with concealed-carry laws see bigger drops. But that’s too simplistic for me. That’s like Bush claiming that invading Iraq helped prevent the next 9/11 when in fact there are at least over half a dozen other factors in play.

On the bright side, if the need to carry a gun at all times to protect yrself is overblown (and I think it is), so are the fears that CCW laws will encourage public shootouts and vigilantism, which has never really happened in the states that have passed such laws – not on any grand scale I’m aware of, anyway. So you can probably still take the family to Hooters without fear of getting into a drunken duel over football teams or gun control laws or whatever you think is worth shooting people over.

Still, you have to admit that Warren Ellis has a point – when society has reached a point where you can legally bring guns into a bar but get fined for smoking a cigarette, it says a lot about yr priorities and threat assessment capabilities.

Maybe we could split the difference and have restaurant sections for smokers and gun owners.

Smoking or non-smoking guns,

This is dF

[identity profile] thelastaerie.livejournal.com 2009-07-15 09:55 am (UTC)(link)
GUNS + ALCOHOL = WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

Err... you can't shoot straight under the influence and you shoot yourself or your girlfriend instead?