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Among a slew of other laws that
took effect July 1 was one that allows those in What strikes me as odd about
this law is that, while the legislature was hell-bent on getting puffers out
of restaurants because of their allegedly omni-floating second-hand smoke,
they felt no compunction about allowing people with loaded weapons to enter
not only restaurants, but bars as well. I don’t know about you, but given the
choice, I’d rather face someone lazily smoking a cigarette in a smoking area
than a free-ranging heat packer. Taking a stray bullet in the chest is really
not quite the same as being Marlboro-ized. Supposedly, the ameliorative
clause in the bill is one that prohibits anyone carrying a weapon into a restaurant
or bar from drinking booze. And that’s fine, but how is any restaurateur or
bartender to know? That’s the whole point of carrying a “concealed” weapon.
Are all these weapon wielders really going to belly up to the bar and drink
cherry cokes? Using the recent smoker
segregation laws as precedent, we should allow owners of restaurants and bars
to better deal with the new law and calm the fears of their unheated
customers by establishing a few simple procedures. To begin with, all restaurant owners
should be allowed to hire guards to frisk customers as they enter their
establishments. Recompense for the guards would come from slush funds set up
by the governor and those legislators who voted for the bill. Diners who are found not to be
carrying weapons would be allowed access to any part of the restaurant or
bar. Those who are carrying weapons
would be asked to park their guns at the door, or, barring that, be siphoned
off immediately into separate non-drinking, completely enclosed padded areas
known as militia rooms. There they could do full obeisance to the Second
Amendment and its stipulation that the reason we have a right to bear arms is
because we need a well-regulated militia. Waiters serving the militia
rooms should be dressed in colonial military garb, and the rooms themselves
stocked with replicas of colonial rifles or shotguns, once again in
recognition of the Second Amendment and the types of weapons with which the
Founding Fathers who wrote it were familiar. Militia room diners could then
compare their easily loaded and fully accurate weapons with Second Amendment
guns that took over three minutes to load between shots. This might well
encourage deep philosophical discussions among gun-owning diners about the
ramifications of the Second Amendment relative to the possession of
semiautomatic weapons and rapid-firing pistols. Certainly they would conclude
that the well-regulated militias we have today are much more efficient than
those in existence when the amendment was written. While dining, customers will be
treated to constantly running scenes from “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” or the conclusion
of “Reservoir Dogs.” After dinner, and in lieu of
drinks, militia room diners might well be encouraged to reenact the scenes they’ve
seen, and perhaps contests could be held to determine who among them could
best replicate the roles of Wyatt Earp, Mr. White or Mr. Orange. Since the
participants have had no booze, such contests could prove highly competitive,
or fatal, as the case may be. It seems to me that such
accommodations would go far to ease the fears of those who believe that the
new law will increase violence or create a dining environment that is
ill-suited for a pleasurable evening out at your favorite restaurant. Unlike smokers, those who carry
concealed weapons into bars are best left to their own devices in a padded
room set aside just for them. |
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lewleadbeater.com Copyright 2002 All Rights Reserved email: LWL@lewleadbeater.com |
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