Gordaen's Blog

Did you hear the great news? Tennessee’s House voted to allow people with “handgun carry permits” to bring their firearms into bars. This is one of those stories that is simultaneously so hilarious and terrible that you wonder if you can really make it any funnier.

I think this is one of those idealistic arguments that ignores reality. The logic of the argument must be along the lines of the second amendment grants the right to bear arms with a dash of “innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”^* Ignoring that courts have already ruled that the rights of individuals can be taken away for the protection of the greater public (e.g., you can’t yell “fire” or “bomb” in a crowded theater to exercise your freedom of speech), I still have to wonder about the additional logic. I’ve come up with a few possibilities:

• While incredibly drunk, armed people will exhibit the excellent judgment to not take out their firearms during a fight
• When a dangerous situation does break out, the average “buzzing” hero will be able to shoot someone else in the face to save everyone (this works especially well with the idea of “innocent until proven guilty in a court of law”)
• People will be too drunk to be able to even use their guns
• The dumb people will begin to eliminate themselves

I don’t know; I must be missing something. We recognize that intoxication + car = bad, so why not recognize that intoxication + gun = bad? I hear the argument that people have to get permits to carry guns, blah blah; you have to get a license to drive and yet sober people still cause deadly car accidents every single day.

Besides, as far as I am concerned, the second amendment grants me the right to own a nuclear weapon. Now I can take my suitcase nuke to the bar with me when I visit Tennessee!

^*Please note that it is okay to not grant this right to people we have not given a trial to but whom we suspect have done bad things.