With all of the really serious issues of taxing and spending and other major matters that our Tennessee General Assembly has to deal with, it is amazing that our legislators take time to consider such an issue as “guns in bars.”
We already have more than enough big issues involving liquor sales, public consumption of intoxicating liquor, driving-drunk traffic dangers and alcohol-related crimes without inviting additional problems.
And we have more than enough problems with people criminally — and even legally — carrying and using guns without inviting more.
So why would legislators think, even for a moment, that it would be a “good idea” for people with gun-carry permits to have guns in places that serve liquor?
Isn’t that a kind of issue that should be a “non-starter,” one that should never even come up?
There surely is no public “need” or “good purpose” to be served by legalizing the mixing of guns and bars. But there are lots of obviously bad things about the idea.
Legislators should get on with their big tax-and-spend and other pressing public-welfare issues, and not unnecessarily and unwisely invite any liquor-and-guns problems.