Allowing Guns In Bars - Now THAT'S Nuts!

Arizona seems to have regressed back to the 19th Century. Brings back a (perhaps faulty) memory.

I remember reading once that Billy The Kid killed one of his New Mexico victims in a bar. The fellow was drunk and carelessly left his gun unattended on the bar. He was talking smack about the Kid (a public enemy whom he did not know). The Kid surreptitiously emptied the gun of bullets, then publicly identified himself to the man. The man quickly retrieved the firearm and the Kid laughed as he heard the thrilling but satisfying click-click-click coming from the empty gun of the panicked bar patron - before blasting the fellow away into eternity.

What was old is new again!:

Arizona -- in the news over the summer for allowing gun-toters to attend presidential events -- has now passed a law allowing people to carry guns into bars. TPM has reported on 14 people in 3 separate Arizona incidents packing heat at political events - events that involved President Obama and Democratic representatives from the state.

The NRA-backed law, which takes effect today, allows those with a concealed weapons permit to bring guns into bars and restaurants. The new rules coincide with the Supreme Court announcement today that it will review a gun-control case, McDonald v. Chicago, which concerns whether state and local gun laws may be challenged under the Second Amendment.

The one stipulation that prohibits gun-toters from entering Arizona bars: if the establishment has a sign against them. So if there's a sign, you can't bring a gun in -- except there are enough loopholes to render the rule almost meaningless.

First, the signs have to be state-approved. And according to the AP:

A person would be exempt if the sign banning guns had fallen down, the person wasn't an Arizona resident, or the notice was first posted less than a month earlier.That certainly isn't making bar owners in Arizona feel better.

Mark DeSimone, who owns the Hidden House Cocktail Lounge in Phoenix, told the AP even putting the signs up can hurt business: "It looks scary. It looks to somebody like, should I go in this place because they obviously have a problem with people bringing weapons in."

Meanwhile, the NRA's Western Region Director J.P. Nelson said "if a person starts drinking and gets in a shootout and kills someone, of course they're subject to criminal prosecution."

The guns-in-bars rule is especially striking in Arizona, where Chris Broughton made headlines last month when he was spotted carrying an assault rifle (AR-15) and pistol outside the VFW Convention Center in Phoenix. President Obama was speaking there at the time. Broughton attended a virulently anti-Obama sermon just the day before the event, where Pastor Steven Anderson prayed for the President to die. Broughton even said he agrees with the pastor.

He wasn't the only one carrying a gun at that Obama event: twelve people were packing heat that day in Phoenix, sort of a trend in Arizona. Someone dropped a gun at a town hall with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), and a pro-health reform activist brought a gun to an anti-reform demonstration near the office of Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-AZ).

There are 138,350 people in Arizona with concealed weapons permits. Travel writer and publisher Arthur Frommer said that he won't be traveling to the southwestern state anymore after all the political gun-toters of August. Arizona's new gun law may only harden the positions of those who feel similarly.