Wild, Wild East

GUNS AND RESTAURANTS

As if the Atkins Diet wasn't enough reason to fear eating, now a Georgia state representative has introduced a new handgun bill to the state legislature that "would allow anyone with a concealed weapons permit to take a handgun inside most restaurants in Georgia." ---Atlanta Journal Constitution

What?!? Am I reading this correctly? We need this law so that people with concealed weapons permits will feel safer carrying their guns into restaurants? What about the rights of people who think handguns and highballs don't mix? I do NOT feel safer with guns around me; what about MY right to security?

In college, I was in a fraternity. There was a brother there that kept a handgun. I wasn't against the handgun, just against the fact that the only time he ever brandished it was while intoxicated! Alcohol impairs judgment --> impaired judgment = bad choices --> people shouldn't be armed while making bad choices; especially the kind with repercussions that can't be undone. "Sorry" only works the day after a fist fight.

I am so against this, but I can see a compromise. Allow restaurants to decide for themselves if they allow handguns inside. The 2nd Amendment doesn't state that everyone has to bear arms; restaurant owners should be given a choice. (If they can be procecuted for allowing someone to get drunk in their establishment, they should certainly worry what would happen if they allowed someone to get shot.)

A restauranteur could opt to allow guns in his establishment and be compelled to post a sign to that effect; "Armed Diners Inside". That gives both the owners and the patrons a choice. They can be in a restaurant with their own kind of peace of mind; one that either includes or excludes armaments.

That way I can choose to eat dinner with the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King or Bernie Goetz and John Hinckley.

---More food for thought---

"What if someone comes to Atlanta to stay at the Ritz-Carlton, and they have to walk a couple of blocks to a restaurant?" said state Rep. Bobby Franklin (R-Marietta). "They'd like to be able to carry that gun in downtown Atlanta at night. Right now, even if they have a permit and have passed the background checks, they can't."

Gun control activists have attacked Franklin's proposal, which would apply to any restaurant that generates more than 50 percent of its income from food. ---Atlanta Journal Constitution

"Two year-old shot in robbery attempt".

"Boy, 16, Defending Mom Opens Fire On Dad".

"Man Shot To Death In Tacoma Restaurant"

"Restaurant owner Troy Hackett shot dead"

"Suspect in theft shot, killed by businessman"

"The Trial of John Hinckley"

"Bernie Goetz Civil Lawsuit"