Take that!
Mary Mancini is glad that a gun bill may inconvenience law-abiding citizens:
Apparently, he’s [TFA’s John Harris] upset because he carries his gun at all times and if Davidson County opts out of allowing permit-holders to carry in parks, he’ll be unable to cut through the grassy area on Church Street to get to his office.
Call the wahmbulance, Harris.
Our liberal radio host must take some sort of comfort in her side’s one small victory out of Tennessee’s recent passage of civil rights legislation expanding the right to self-defense. And that one small victory is Harris gets some exercise.
This is one of the reasons why on gun laws, except for this one, Tennessee has preemption and the state decides what the laws are. When the localities set up their own laws, it creates a patchwork of inconsistency that no one can keep up with. Say I carry in a park in my hometown, then go somewhere else where they opted out. I’ve broken the law for doing something that I’m accustomed to doing. It doesn’t make me a hardened criminal. Just a guy who doesn’t carry copies of the local ordinances around in my pocket. Who can keep up with it? Or, as Harris illustrates, you take a simple shortcut and find yourself running afoul of the law. But that simple point is lost on a simple mind.
Anyway, I actually like that various cities in the state are opting out of the bill. Because, and mark my words, next year a bill getting rid of that option will wind its way through the legislature.
June 30th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Say I visit a TN town different from where I live.
Say I have a permit and I carry.
Say I am walking along a sidewalk next to a large grassy field, part of a park.
Say I decide to cross the field to get to the street on the other side.
Is there a requirement that the park be posted well enough that there is no way I can possibly avoid seeing a “NO CARRY” sign before I enter the forbidden zone, or am I at risk of becoming a lawbreaker because the posting requirements are less stringent than, say, posting a property against hunting or trespass?
Because I can see a case to get the local control removed if an average citizen walking on a public sidewalk cannot tell if he or she is breaking the law or not.
June 30th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Your comments are similar to the ones I make about the FedGov. People tell me often that it is getting too big, too bad, yada yada. I reply with – it will get worse — and I want it to get worse — before it gets better.
Why do I want it to worse? Because when it gets worse, more people will get motivated to change it. Then it will get better.
We don’t need to help it get worse – the politicos will take care of that naturally (avalanches don’t need help falling). We just have to be informed, organized, and supportive when our friends and neighbors find their motivation.
June 30th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Cities that opt out will have to purchase a whole lot of signs to make sure that all parks are properly posted, yes? Being ticketed in an unmarked park in an “opt-out” city sounds like a perfect lawsuit. Make the cities pay for their stand. Make noise about the waste of taxpayers’ money in a recession.
June 30th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Uncle; “…expanding the right to self-defense.”
Nope. Gotta spank yourself there. The right has existed all along. It can be neither expanded nor contracted by mere mortals. What the recent laws have done is reduce the level of contempt for that right just a little bit.