Following a recent series of high-profile shooting incidents in the United States, the southern state of Tennessee is changing its gun laws this week.

It is relaxing them.

Soon, Tennessee’s bars and restaurants will no longer be off-limits for registered weapons. State legislators – a quarter of whom own firearms – have passed a law allowing guns into bars and restaurants, but preventing their owners from buying alcohol.

The basic wingnut defense.

For the bill’s Democratic sponsor – State Senator Doug Jackson – it is a case of preserving the rights of individuals and those of individual states.

People are fearful about tomorrow. They feel insecure. And the Second Amendment right is something that they cherish and it’s a means of protecting themselves and their family and defending what they have. It provides security in troubled times.”

Nashville’s police chief, Ronal Serpas does not believe that people who walk into bars with guns will steer clear of the shot glasses.

“If you think about how alchohol influences the choices people make… I don’t believe people are not going to drink and have guns, because I know they drink and drive,” he says.

A well-known restaurateur is fighting back against Tennessee’s newly enacted law that allows gun owners to bring their weapons into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.

Randy Rayburn, owner of three top-rated restaurants in Nashville, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday challenging the state law’s constitutionality, arguing it creates a public nuisance by threatening the safety of the public…

At least 200,000 Tennesseans have permits allowing them to carry their guns concealed while in public…

Obey the Stupid Fracking Law defense

The new law was pushed by the Tennessee Firearms Association. Its executive director, John Harris, said critics had every opportunity to defeat the legislation — which state lawmakers passed with little opposition — and should not turn to court action at this point…

Rayburn’s lawsuit will receive a hearing on July 13, a day before the law is due to go into force.

Drunks don’t care about any law. Death and DUI statistics in every state in the U.S. bear that out.




  1. sargasso says:

    Those wacky, Tennessarians!

  2. RSweeney says:

    Let me get this straight. Drunks don’t obey the law, so you support a law to stop carry-licensed gun owners, arguably the most law abiding group of citizens in America, from carrying a legally authorized concealed gun into a restaurant that serves alcohol.

    Oh the irony.

  3. bobbo, loving the truth of iron clad logic says:

    Well, we all know its a GIVEN that Republicans are Stupid and wrong on just about every public issue. Therefore when we see that it is Republicans that support gun availability among many other retroactive social policies, it follows by historical precedent one after another in a failing repetitive loop of insanity, that legalizing gun availability is stupid.

    Everything else is discussion at the edges.

  4. Mr. Fusion says:

    #56, Cow-Patty,

    Actually, the number isn’t known, only guessed at. Keep working on collecting actual FACTS.

    Well, for the sake of argument, let’s double the reported number. So 135,000 cases of self defense versus 2.7 million gun crimes.

    Or would you like to triple the number, or quadruple? The point is there is a huge disparity between gun crimes and legitimate self defense. Poo poo the facts all you like, face it, you’ve been shown how wrong you are again.

    Oh, and those facts you presented? Bogus. Anecdotal information foes not reflect a trend or tendency. Keep compiling your facts.

    Another one in contention for the “Right Wing Nut of the Day Award”.

  5. Mr. Fusion says:

    RE #65

    DOH !!!

    Me and my clumsy fingers.

    that line should be

    Anecdotal information does not reflect a trend or tendency.

  6. Awake says:

    Patrick-
    You obvoisly didn’t even bother going to the study.
    Typical creationst getting owned when facts are presented.

  7. Hugh Ripper says:

    So people are living in fear in the US. I’m not surprised when there are so many guns about. Add alcohol into that mix and your supposed to be SAFER? Surely this is a sad joke.

  8. canucklehead says:

    according to Wikipedia’s sources

    trend seems pretty clear to me.

    tinyurl.com/6x4pmk

    Murder Rate per 100 000
    United States 5.8
    Switzerland 2.94
    Sweden 2.64
    Finland 2.17
    United Kingdom 2.03
    New Zealand 2.00
    Canada 1.85
    Portugal 1.79
    France 1.59
    Bermuda 1.56
    Belgium 1.49
    Australia 1.45
    Italy 1.23
    Spain 1.14
    Iceland 1.03
    Germany 0.98
    Denmark 0.98
    Netherlands 0.97
    Ireland 0.91
    Luxembourg 0.90
    Austria 0.81
    Norway 0.78
    Greece 0.76
    Japan 0.64

    tinyurl.com/nhomwr

    Country Guns per 100 residents
    United States 90.0
    Switzerland 46.0
    France 32.0
    Finland 32.0
    Canada 31.5
    Sweden 31.5
    Austria 31.0
    Germany 30.0
    New Zealand 26.8
    Greece 23.0
    Australia 15.5
    Italy 12.1
    Spain 11.0
    United Kingdom 5.6

  9. Named says:

    61 Paddy-0

    Another thread where “conservatives” can claim victory using statistics that would make a grade 1 student blush.

    YOU WIN! USA! USA! USA!

  10. Faxon says:

    #20 You and all your friends are sissys, and fodder for the criminals.

  11. Faxon says:

    #20, You, and all your friends are so superior to us gun owners. I bow at your feet. Please, let all the people in your town know that you are completely defenseless, and can’t protect your wife and daughter if there were riots.

  12. Patrick says:

    # 72 Faxon said, “Please, let all the people in your town know that you are completely defenseless, and can’t protect your wife and daughter if there were riots.”

    Survival of the fitest & demise of the idiots families. Nature takes care of it.

  13. Hugh Ripper says:

    #72 Faxon

    Get a lot of riots where you live, do you? I’d move to somewhere safer.

  14. Named says:

    71, 72 Faxon / Faxon

    Amazing. A dual-natured comment from the same “person” within minutes of each other! Alfred1 has met his match!

    There really are two Americas. One in which people go to work and make money and do stuff (NYC, Chicago, Seattle, San Fran) and the rest where they lock up their wives and daughters behind reinforced doors and guard the coop with rifles and beer (the rest of the Country). Pathetic really.

    USA! USA! USA!

  15. brm says:

    AZ governor just signed this right into law for us today! yay!

    ps: gun ownership isn’t about safety – it’s about freedom. The gun deaths are an acceptable trade-off.

  16. Named says:

    73 Paddy-0,

    “Nature takes care of it.”

    Good to see you have no belief in the science man creates. GO GOD! USA! USA! USA! ROFLMFAO!!!!!

  17. Named says:

    76 brm,
    “The gun deaths are an acceptable trade-off.” Hope it doesn’t happen to someone you care for… though it would be acceptable.

  18. Faxon says:

    #78 Named,
    Do you drive a car?
    Do you drink alcohol?
    Do you ever go swimming?
    Do you ride a bicycle?
    Do you ever leave the house?

    Well, then you, too, accept risk.
    Guns protect people from brutes and predators, don’t you get it???? Honest people are entitled to protect themselves, but you, or course, don’t agree.

  19. Faxon says:

    74 I live in Kalifornia, and yes, there have been riots here, and will be again. Do you remember New Orleans a couple of years ago? An earthquake will produce similar results. The scumbags will loot and riot, and the police will be too busy to answer your fucking 911 call, but you, of course, can’t possibly imagine any such thing. I can. I have already seen it in LA and Berkeley and Oakland. I work in a business where I have to go where other sissys fear to tread.

  20. aslightlycrankygeek says:

    #69 Canuck,

    1) The links you reference are pictures of ducks – they seem to have nothing to do with your statistics.

    2) Wikipedia lists the murder rates of 135 countries. Why did you select only 23 of these and them compare these to the gun ownership of only 13 other countries?

    3) Where did you get the statistics on gun ownership? If it is from Wikipedia, notice this comment: “this number is not a representation of the percentage of people who possess guns in each nation”

    4) If you really want to show the effects of stricter or looser gun control laws in the US, why don’t you compare murder rates in states or cities in the US with different laws. This seems more relevant in trying to prove that looser concealed handgun laws in Tennessee will lead to more deaths. Also, this lessens the other variables that exist when comparing our country to others with completely different cultures. Hint: you would probably not want to do this if you are trying to prove that more gun laws equates to less crime.

  21. Hugh Ripper says:

    #80 Faxon

    You’re right. I cant possibly imagine. I live in Australia, where I’ve never seen a riot, have never owned a gun or been threatened with one, don’t know anyone who has ever been involved in gun violence, don’t know anyone living in fear of criminals or anyone who feels owning a gun would make them safer. A different world entirely, it seems.

    I get the whole 2nd Amendment thing, I really do, but from my perspective the only thing that firearms do for you is make you more likely to be shot.

  22. Rick's Cafe says:

    #81
    and to take your argument a little further, how about comparing gun deaths in countries where it’s illegal to own a firearm?
    ************
    It makes one wonder, between a preference to live in an area where criminal know people can’t defend themselves and the propensity for these people to kill their unborn babies…how does the species of ‘liberal’ keep from becoming extinct?

  23. deowll says:

    The law as I understand it is not exactly as the title claims. If you have the carry permit you can take your gun into a place that serves booze if more than half of its income is based on selling food but you are not allowed to consume any booze.

    Further the business can forbid you to bring a gun in.

  24. LibertyLover says:

    Gun Control has nothing to do with reducing crime. It’s about maintaining the status quo, politically. Anybody who believes differently is a tool.

    http://tinyurl.com/ml6h78

    Click on Download and then the Stanford link. It’s 35 pages, so you really need to RTFA to get the whole story.

    I guess our founding fathers had the right idea. If things gets crappy, the people should take things into their own hands.

    On an older subject:

    Here is an interesting tidbit from that pdf having nothing to do with the subject but it looks like Congress isn’t the only place where long bills are pushed through without enough time to read them.

    After its first reading in the Commons on June 1, 1920, it was scheduled for a second
    reading and full debate the following day. This was cancelled. Then, at 10:40 on the
    evening of June 8, the bill was brought back without warning and with two other
    bills scheduled for consideration in the few minutes remaining before adjournment.
    Only a handful of those members present were given copies of the text.

  25. aslightlycrankygeek says:

    #84, Rick’s

    “how does the species of ‘liberal’ keep from becoming extinct?”

    My thoughts on this – Modern liberalism, which has very little to do with classical liberalism, probably cannot survive long. I am certainly no historian or sociologist, but liberalism in its current form seems to me to be more reactionary than a sensible movement. In some ways it is like a virus that requires a healty host. It will try to attack the host and will feed on the fruits of the host, but if the host ever dies, it must lie dormant until certain conditions in the next host create suitable environment for it to regain traction.

    I think there will always be new liberals created any time there is a healthy functioning society in reaction to something that may be emotionally bothersome about the way things are being done. (Or if a person has been mistreated, they will strive to become the opposite of the person who did it or the society that allowed it to happen, throwing the baby out with the bathwater.) But eventually, once it has reached a tipping point, you end up with a place like Europe that cannot compete in the world market and is on the verge of being taken over by Muslims, who certainly will not carry on the liberal traditions.
    http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1890354.ece

    I think that conservatism also has to potential to create a society headed for extinction, but only when taken to such an extreme point as modern liberalism is that it is only a warped version of what it started as. You go too far in either direction and you end up with something very similar.

  26. Rick Cain says:

    Note to self, eat at home more often.

  27. Hugh Ripper says:

    #87 ascg

    According to your link, Muslims account for only 3% of Britons but you say they are on the verge of taking over. What’s with that?

    Don’t you believe in freedom of religion? Do you feel threatened by other cultures? Is Obama’s presidency the signal for all good Muslims to rise up and open a can of whoop-ass on the whiteys?

  28. Named says:

    86 Liberty Lover,
    “Gun Control has nothing to do with reducing crime. It’s about maintaining the status quo, politically. Anybody who believes differently is a tool.”

    Wow. You actually get it. I’m glad you’re not always wrong. That being said, the government wouldn’t necessarily LIKE having a populace replace them by force, so they concentrate of the fears of Faxon and the like: the evil black man is going to rape your white daughter, etc…

  29. LibertyLover says:

    #90, Tool.

  30. Named says:

    91, Idiot.


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