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Second Amendment Champs Ignoring Handgun Violence
"Bring to me evidence that this is caused harm to the public in the states that have had this law for many years, I'll pull this bill myself."
That's our challenge from Doug Jackson, chief Senate sponsor of the guns-in-bars law. We guess the senator isn't a regular reader of Pith in the Wind because we reported almost a month ago on a new study that provides all the evidence anyone needs:
Concealed handgun permit holders killed at least seven police officers and 44 private citizens in 31 shootings over roughly the past two years, according to the Violence Policy Center, a gun control advocacy group.And the center says it's under-reporting the number of murders because it was forced to rely on news reports to compile the data. For Tennessee, the report lists only one killing--the motorist outside Memphis who grabbed his pistol and shot another man in a fit of road rage during an argument over how close their SUVs were parked--but Tennessee newspapers have accounted for at least three other killings this year by handgun permitees.
Something tells Pith that Jackson isn't really interested in facts like these. Of course, he would argue that these killers would have gotten handguns with or without state-issued permits and committed their crimes anyway. And besides, he'd say, how many of these killings were in bars? There's no winning arguments with these gun nuts. You make a seemingly irrefutable point, and they just slice the baloney a different way. Luckily, Nashville restaurant owners and workers are pressing their lawsuit to toss out the law. We think they've got a strong case.
Update: Tennessee makes ABC News. "Bringing Your Own Shots to the Bar."
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