A bigger guns-in-bars bill

State legislators do not allow people to carry guns into the state Capitol for a good reason. They're afraid a deranged person, disturbed over some perceived legislative intrusion, might walk into their chambers and start shooting.

Their caution is understandable. We're all well aware of how frequently such violent episodes occur at other places of work. Furthermore, lawmakers and most citizens know that gun violence can be triggered for myriad reasons and can occur randomly in almost any venue, from shopping malls to schools, from churches to colleges to strips of congested highways.

Yet their reasonable caution raises a question of fairness and wisdom: If lawmakers recognize that allowing guns in their own place of business could needlessly jeopardize their safety, why shouldn't they show comparable concern for their constituents by keeping similar bans on gun-carry in place in other public venues?

More to the point, why is the Legislature again entertaining a new bill to allow handgun-carry permit holders to go armed in restaurants and bars all over the state that serve alcohol, one of the most incendiary places to carry a gun?

Readers may recall that a similar bill was enacted by strong majorities in both chambers of the Legislature last year -- and easily reauthorized after Gov. Phil Bredesen vetoed the bill. It was later struck down in a Nashville Chancery Court, however, for being unconstitutionally vague in terms of the size of restaurants and bars it would cover and the requirement that they function as restaurants in terms of the numbers of meals they served.

The replacement bill now before the Legislature takes a sledge hammer to those barriers by throwing open gun-carry rights to all roadhouses, bars and restaurants that serve alcohol. Such places automatically would be open to gun-carry permit holders unless the bar or restaurant posted conspicuous notice that guns were not allowed.

Surely lawmakers have not forgotten the arguments against allowing casual gun-carry for permit holders to places that serve alcohol.

For starters, the law provides two ground rules, both of which would cause enforcement and liability problems.

One of the ground rules provides that people who carry their concealed guns into bars would not be allowed to drink alcohol, and would be guilty of a misdemeanor if they did. The other allows restaurants and bars that don't want to allow guns in their businesses to post a no-guns-allowed sign.

Both would be difficult to enforce, and both would carry significant liability and hazard risks to business owners as well as their patrons.

No-guns-allowed signs could be conspicuous and still be missed by patrons entering the bar or restaurant. Thus, restaurants and bars -- even those that post signs disallowing gun-carry -- would end up having to invest in enforcement of the law by checking patrons for guns.

How they would perform those checks -- by scans, body searches, or merely questions -- could present liability issues in the event of a shooting. Managers also would have to tag or point out gun-carriers to servers to ensure that they would not be offered or served alcohol, and there is ample room for mistakes.

Any lapse in strict enforcement could spawn violence, injury and a huge lawsuit. No wonder so many bar and restaurant owners, and the Tennessee Hospitality Association which represents them, voiced their opposition to the legislature and remain opposed this year.

Chiefs of police around the state also joined in persistent criticism of the measure last year for much the same reason -- the heightened possibility of violence and criminal assault -- and their opposition should still be considered.

Beyond that, it is mystifying that the Legislature, with so much other important business before it, would act so irrationally to broaden gun rights for the state's 269,000 gun-carry permit holders, when they are such a small fraction of the state's 6 million-plus population. Our lawmaker's unbalanced devotion to excessive gun-carry rights exceeds any semblance of reason.

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