Restaurant owners who are not allowing guns in their establishments should be applauded. I do not own a gun nor feel the need to.
Is Asheville that unsafe that people carry guns when they go out? Are they afraid they will be mugged on the way home? Why would they need a gun to protect themselves in a restaurant? Protect them from what? Other people with guns, that’s what!
Speaking for myself and probably lots of other people, I would feel safer dining in a place that does not allow guns. The owners know that alcohol and guns make a potentially deadly cocktail.
I admire the restaurant owners for standing up to the gun-toting population with their civilized decision to ban guns from their establishments.
— Gail Roberts Asheville
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32 thoughts on “Letter writer: Don’t take your guns to town”
Solutionist
Gun free zones are mass killer magnets … ask any mass killer why they chose a gun free zone.
Stephen Towe
I am always amazed at how some folks just don’t get it–don’t want to get it, and prefer to live in a gun free fantasy zone where nothing bad ever happens, no one ever gets assaulted or raped or robbed or killed. I am tempted to ask why the fantasy of safety is so appealing, especially in light of the fact that we have demonic monsters from Islam murdering indiscriminately all over the world. I have been a licensed Concealed Carry Permittee for over 20 years, and I carry 24/7. If a business is posted against carrying, I don’t do business there. I have saved my and my wifes life against a vicious gang attack just outside Asheville by having a gun and knowing how to use it. For realistic people who aren’t ideologically tainted by fantasies, carrying a weapon just makes common sense in the times we now find ourselves. If I ever do have to go into an establishment that is posted against concealed carry, and anything happens–I intend to sue their pants off for violation of my Second Amendment rights.
bsummers
The 2013 State law that allows concealed-carry in bars and restaurants (sponsored & passed by the GOP on a party-line vote), allows private business owners to prohibit you from bringing a weapon onto their premises. They even increased the penalty for violating such prohibition from a Class 2 to a Class 1 misdemeanor, with the strong possibility of losing your permit for good. There’s no “if anything happens” clause that allows you to sue them. You honestly think that private business owners need to be forced to allow you to bring weapons into their place of business if they don’t want them there? That’s insane.
If you’re so terrified to be out in the world without a lethal weapon strapped to your body absolutely every second, maybe you need to hunker in your bunker til the End Times. I know I would feel safer if you did.
Stephen Towe
Businesses have been successfully sued for damages for violating a patrons 2nd Amendment rights with their storybook security fantasies. It’s happened at the Asheville Mall years ago. If you violate a citizens constitutional right to be armed, you’d better have a good insurance policy, or hire armed and competent security. Unless you have armed security with metal detectors, you are simply asking the good guys to be defenseless, while allowing the bad guys a defenseless kill zone. For that, you should and would be held liable. We live in a world with both good people, and evil people that seek defenseless victims. If you are willing to be defenseless, have at it. To me, you are a coward dependent on others to keep you safe.
mynameis
“.If you violate a citizens constitutional right to be armed”
You make it sound like people have the right to carry a gun everywhere because CONSTITUTION.
You know that’s not even remotely true, right?
Plus, holy paranoia! Frankly, if you were carrying a gun in a restaurant I’m in, although you might feel safe(r), I (and probably everyone else) would feel markedly _less_ safe. Nothing like a nutter with a gun and a hair trigger just waiting for someone he deems “evil” to walk in the door.
And yes, you called bsummers a coward, so I feel fairly safe calling you ‘nutter’. Safer than being in a public space with you, that’s for sure.
NFB
“Nothing like a nutter with a gun and a hair trigger just waiting for someone he deems “evil” to walk in the door.”
I think there’s a strong subtext of serious mental illness underlying a lot of the pro-pro-pro-gun arguments. “Be armed & prepared to kill at all times.” Remember, every single mass shooter in this country were simply law-abiding 2nd Amendment – enabled Americans until they snapped & pulled the trigger on innocent people. More guns not less? The whole thing really strikes me as symptomatic of a society with deep mental health issues…
Present company excepted of course, Mr. Towe.
Anyone who’s not going out armed to kill at all times is a coward? That’s really how you see your fellow Americans? Maybe that’s the kind of hateful world you’re creating for yourself, but it sucks that it’s bleeding over into the world that I have to live in.
Stephen Towe
I believe it is cowardly to be dependent , completely dependent on other people–whether it’s police, or armed citizens—to keep you and your family safe. It’s relegating your personal safety to someone willing to do violence to protect you. Every single gun violence story over the past year have happened in gun free zones—schools, churches, planned parenthood, concerts, movie theaters etc. The shooters, every one had a history of mental illness, was on a psychotropic drug, or had been ignored by the mental health system. They were NOT law abiding second amendment advocates who just snapped. I call that left leaning perception what it is–a lie created by your own fears of not being in control–transference. To get a CCW permit, it takes a thorough mental health screening, criminal history background check, etc. And you fear them? And not the truly mentally ill folks who buy their guns because someone in the mental health system wasn’t doing their job and allowed a known psychopath loose to do this evil. None of your arguments make any sense, so you resort to insults and inuendo. Get off your butts and argue intelligently, and stop whining like adolescents.
bsummers
You’ve given up any credibility of “arguing intelligently” when you call the overwhelming majority of American citizens “cowards”.
Enjoy your dark, crazy little world.
NFB
” Every single gun violence story over the past year have happened in gun free zones—schools, churches, planned parenthood, concerts, movie theaters etc. ”
Then there are those that occur on military bases:
If you can sue a business for not letting you in the doors with your portable home arsenal, I wonder if you could be sued when you miss the “bad guy” and the blow the head off someone’s baby.
And don’t tell me you’re the surest shot in the West(ern North Carolina). Better and better trained men than you miss their targets all the time.
Stephen Towe
I’m sure you could be sued for that. We are a nation of laws, and that would be manslaughter. The moral of the story is this—practice under stress routinely because in an emergency you will never rise to the occasion, but you will default to your level of training.
hauntedheadnc
No, the moral of the story is that you acknowledge that in attempting to live out your hero fantasies, you run the risk of killing bystanders — and what’s more, that their deaths are an acceptable risk to you.
Stephen Towe
There you go bsummers–another lie, the true sign of cowards. There are 100 million gun owners in America. The vast majority support the Second Amendment, and the God given right to self defense with a firearm. My world is not dark, or crazy. It is a joyful and accountable world filled with hiking, fishing, recreational shooting, family, farming, and love. Not sure about yours, but I suspect you are doing transference again. The average household in Buncombe County has 8 guns. How many do you have? What will you do when this happens to you pretty boy? http://truthuncensored.net/6-time-felon-killed-in-shootout-by-13-year-old-during-home-invasion/#sthash.B4e0g56O.dpbs
bsummers
So you’re counting everyone who owns a gun for hunting, home defense, target shooting, historical collecting, etc. as part of your “everyone should be strapped at all times, and no private business should be allowed to prohibit us from coming in armed” brigade? Now who’s the liar? Not every gun owner has a perpetual Charles Bronson complex, OR contempt for non-gun owners. I guarantee you there are some sane, responsible gun owners out there saying “stay off my side, dude.”
“Pretty boy,” yourself.
Stephen Towe
The liberal silence is deafening. Losers called out and nailed to their banners of banality.
bsummers
Some of us have to work today, crazypants.
You’re waving your guns around in furious vain celebration, aren’t you?
Jason
The silence is likely due to your rather frightening and aggressive rhetoric, not due to political persuasion. You come across as scary, sir.
Tracy Rose
A discussion of the issues is great. Calling each other names? Not so much. Please just stick to discussing the topic at hand, not each other. Thanks.
bsummers
I see the ‘more guns will make us safer’ argument as akin to the ‘driving SUVs will make us safer’ argument. The insurance industry (with billions on the hook) figured out that this was nonsense. Sure, if you drive your SUV head on into my regular passenger car, you’re more likely to survive than I am. But that advantage is erased by the higher mortality from rollovers in SUVs, whether it be from swerving, potholes, blowouts, side impacts, etc. You may FEEL more safe than before, but in fact all you’ve done is make those of us still in regular passenger vehicles LESS safe.
By the same token, gun owners may FEEL safer, but they’re more likely to die from accidental shootings, domestic dispute, suicide, having someone take their gun away from them & shoot them with it, etc.
And the rest of us are decidedly LESS safe from the easy access to weapons, like the one used by that idiot from Black Mountain who killed a bunch of innocents (including a well-armed police officer) in Colorado Springs.
bsummers
Sorry about the name-calling, Tracy.
“…that gun-owner-previously-thought-of-as-responsible from Black Mountain…”
And one last parallel on the SUV/gun thing – in both cases, there’s someone making a lot of money off of stoking our fears: oil companies and car makers, and gun manufacturers and the NRA.
Stephen Towe
Idiots argue the inane
bsummers
The last namecaller loses the argument. I accept your surrender.
Stephen Towe
bsummers–Sorry for the dead on accuracy of my descriptions, and for how you feel about them. Your arguments are at best irrational, emotional, coming from a place of fear and weakness. And rest assured, you are wrong on the facts almost 99%. Surrender? To what? A dialogue of weakness, fear, lies, and animosity toward law abiding gun owners? You live n America, we have a Bill of Rights and a Constitution. O ur nation was forged by men with guns doing violence against tyrants. If you dislike the environment, there’s always England and Australia to retreat to where the whole nation is a gun free zone–which has increased the levels of assault, rape, and violence in both nations. Check the facts before you go off on another tirade against responsible gun ownership. You might not like it, but the facts are clear–Gun Free Zones are targets of opportunity for deranged psychopathic killers. You haven’t learned that yet, because you don’t want facts–just fantasies. You will never see the gun carried by a responsible gun owner that saves your life, or your families life. However, just so you know—any law abiding citizen car carry openly without a permit–with any gun of their choice. It is legal. The facts are on my side, and the facts are gun owners have already won this argument–you seem to be unwilling to accept it.
mynameis
“Your arguments are at best irrational, emotional, coming from a place of fear and weakness.”
Project much?!
mynameis
“Sorry for the dead on accuracy of my descriptions”
Let’s hope your firing accuracy is better than your rhetorical accuracy.
bsummers
Truth is, Mr. Towe – you lost this argument when you called the vast majority of Americans who don’t choose to go around in their daily lives armed, “cowards”. I feel bad for you, for whatever events in your life caused you to live in such fear that you feel the need to carry a lethal weapon at all times, and to express contempt for those of us who don’t. You seem to be truly a wounded soul, and if you need a hog strapped to your chest to feel safe, so be it. We’ll think of it as a prosthetic, or a service dog, or a blankie.
And like the Constitution protects even those who choose to burn the American flag, we’ll have to accept that you have the right to make us all uncomfortable just to act out on your inner demons.
Is this a great country or what?
Jason
the 2nd amendment…arming the F60.0 club for over 200 years…
Peter Robbins
I agree with Reader Towes. In fact, I say we go further and require fancy restaurants to furnish each table with a complimentary derringer. That way responsible diners won’t have their meal suddenly spoiled by the sinking feeling that they left the babysitter at home with a depleted arsenal.
mynameis
“In fact, I say we go further and require fancy restaurants to furnish each table with a complimentary derringer”
Perhaps it could be heated by a little sterno can? After all, happiness is…
The Real World
TG, you dropped in here, Peter. Both your sarcasm and timing for injecting the levity are always appreciated!
The Pontificator
Original letter writer as well as cartoonist (same person, perhaps) indicate a child’s grasp of the issue of “restaurant carry” and self defense.
Gun free zones are mass killer magnets … ask any mass killer why they chose a gun free zone.
I am always amazed at how some folks just don’t get it–don’t want to get it, and prefer to live in a gun free fantasy zone where nothing bad ever happens, no one ever gets assaulted or raped or robbed or killed. I am tempted to ask why the fantasy of safety is so appealing, especially in light of the fact that we have demonic monsters from Islam murdering indiscriminately all over the world. I have been a licensed Concealed Carry Permittee for over 20 years, and I carry 24/7. If a business is posted against carrying, I don’t do business there. I have saved my and my wifes life against a vicious gang attack just outside Asheville by having a gun and knowing how to use it. For realistic people who aren’t ideologically tainted by fantasies, carrying a weapon just makes common sense in the times we now find ourselves. If I ever do have to go into an establishment that is posted against concealed carry, and anything happens–I intend to sue their pants off for violation of my Second Amendment rights.
The 2013 State law that allows concealed-carry in bars and restaurants (sponsored & passed by the GOP on a party-line vote), allows private business owners to prohibit you from bringing a weapon onto their premises. They even increased the penalty for violating such prohibition from a Class 2 to a Class 1 misdemeanor, with the strong possibility of losing your permit for good. There’s no “if anything happens” clause that allows you to sue them. You honestly think that private business owners need to be forced to allow you to bring weapons into their place of business if they don’t want them there? That’s insane.
If you’re so terrified to be out in the world without a lethal weapon strapped to your body absolutely every second, maybe you need to hunker in your bunker til the End Times. I know I would feel safer if you did.
Businesses have been successfully sued for damages for violating a patrons 2nd Amendment rights with their storybook security fantasies. It’s happened at the Asheville Mall years ago. If you violate a citizens constitutional right to be armed, you’d better have a good insurance policy, or hire armed and competent security. Unless you have armed security with metal detectors, you are simply asking the good guys to be defenseless, while allowing the bad guys a defenseless kill zone. For that, you should and would be held liable. We live in a world with both good people, and evil people that seek defenseless victims. If you are willing to be defenseless, have at it. To me, you are a coward dependent on others to keep you safe.
“.If you violate a citizens constitutional right to be armed”
You make it sound like people have the right to carry a gun everywhere because CONSTITUTION.
You know that’s not even remotely true, right?
Plus, holy paranoia! Frankly, if you were carrying a gun in a restaurant I’m in, although you might feel safe(r), I (and probably everyone else) would feel markedly _less_ safe. Nothing like a nutter with a gun and a hair trigger just waiting for someone he deems “evil” to walk in the door.
And yes, you called bsummers a coward, so I feel fairly safe calling you ‘nutter’. Safer than being in a public space with you, that’s for sure.
“Nothing like a nutter with a gun and a hair trigger just waiting for someone he deems “evil” to walk in the door.”
Or someone who asks them not to smoke.
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2015/11/waffle_house_server_shot_over.html
I think there’s a strong subtext of serious mental illness underlying a lot of the pro-pro-pro-gun arguments. “Be armed & prepared to kill at all times.” Remember, every single mass shooter in this country were simply law-abiding 2nd Amendment – enabled Americans until they snapped & pulled the trigger on innocent people. More guns not less? The whole thing really strikes me as symptomatic of a society with deep mental health issues…
Present company excepted of course, Mr. Towe.
Anyone who’s not going out armed to kill at all times is a coward? That’s really how you see your fellow Americans? Maybe that’s the kind of hateful world you’re creating for yourself, but it sucks that it’s bleeding over into the world that I have to live in.
I believe it is cowardly to be dependent , completely dependent on other people–whether it’s police, or armed citizens—to keep you and your family safe. It’s relegating your personal safety to someone willing to do violence to protect you. Every single gun violence story over the past year have happened in gun free zones—schools, churches, planned parenthood, concerts, movie theaters etc. The shooters, every one had a history of mental illness, was on a psychotropic drug, or had been ignored by the mental health system. They were NOT law abiding second amendment advocates who just snapped. I call that left leaning perception what it is–a lie created by your own fears of not being in control–transference. To get a CCW permit, it takes a thorough mental health screening, criminal history background check, etc. And you fear them? And not the truly mentally ill folks who buy their guns because someone in the mental health system wasn’t doing their job and allowed a known psychopath loose to do this evil. None of your arguments make any sense, so you resort to insults and inuendo. Get off your butts and argue intelligently, and stop whining like adolescents.
You’ve given up any credibility of “arguing intelligently” when you call the overwhelming majority of American citizens “cowards”.
Enjoy your dark, crazy little world.
” Every single gun violence story over the past year have happened in gun free zones—schools, churches, planned parenthood, concerts, movie theaters etc. ”
Then there are those that occur on military bases:
http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/A-History-of-Shootings-at-Military-Installations-in-the-US-223933651.html
If you can sue a business for not letting you in the doors with your portable home arsenal, I wonder if you could be sued when you miss the “bad guy” and the blow the head off someone’s baby.
And don’t tell me you’re the surest shot in the West(ern North Carolina). Better and better trained men than you miss their targets all the time.
I’m sure you could be sued for that. We are a nation of laws, and that would be manslaughter. The moral of the story is this—practice under stress routinely because in an emergency you will never rise to the occasion, but you will default to your level of training.
No, the moral of the story is that you acknowledge that in attempting to live out your hero fantasies, you run the risk of killing bystanders — and what’s more, that their deaths are an acceptable risk to you.
There you go bsummers–another lie, the true sign of cowards. There are 100 million gun owners in America. The vast majority support the Second Amendment, and the God given right to self defense with a firearm. My world is not dark, or crazy. It is a joyful and accountable world filled with hiking, fishing, recreational shooting, family, farming, and love. Not sure about yours, but I suspect you are doing transference again. The average household in Buncombe County has 8 guns. How many do you have? What will you do when this happens to you pretty boy? http://truthuncensored.net/6-time-felon-killed-in-shootout-by-13-year-old-during-home-invasion/#sthash.B4e0g56O.dpbs
So you’re counting everyone who owns a gun for hunting, home defense, target shooting, historical collecting, etc. as part of your “everyone should be strapped at all times, and no private business should be allowed to prohibit us from coming in armed” brigade? Now who’s the liar? Not every gun owner has a perpetual Charles Bronson complex, OR contempt for non-gun owners. I guarantee you there are some sane, responsible gun owners out there saying “stay off my side, dude.”
“Pretty boy,” yourself.
The liberal silence is deafening. Losers called out and nailed to their banners of banality.
Some of us have to work today, crazypants.
You’re waving your guns around in furious vain celebration, aren’t you?
The silence is likely due to your rather frightening and aggressive rhetoric, not due to political persuasion. You come across as scary, sir.
A discussion of the issues is great. Calling each other names? Not so much. Please just stick to discussing the topic at hand, not each other. Thanks.
I see the ‘more guns will make us safer’ argument as akin to the ‘driving SUVs will make us safer’ argument. The insurance industry (with billions on the hook) figured out that this was nonsense. Sure, if you drive your SUV head on into my regular passenger car, you’re more likely to survive than I am. But that advantage is erased by the higher mortality from rollovers in SUVs, whether it be from swerving, potholes, blowouts, side impacts, etc. You may FEEL more safe than before, but in fact all you’ve done is make those of us still in regular passenger vehicles LESS safe.
By the same token, gun owners may FEEL safer, but they’re more likely to die from accidental shootings, domestic dispute, suicide, having someone take their gun away from them & shoot them with it, etc.
And the rest of us are decidedly LESS safe from the easy access to weapons, like the one used by that idiot from Black Mountain who killed a bunch of innocents (including a well-armed police officer) in Colorado Springs.
Sorry about the name-calling, Tracy.
“…that gun-owner-previously-thought-of-as-responsible from Black Mountain…”
And one last parallel on the SUV/gun thing – in both cases, there’s someone making a lot of money off of stoking our fears: oil companies and car makers, and gun manufacturers and the NRA.
Idiots argue the inane
The last namecaller loses the argument. I accept your surrender.
bsummers–Sorry for the dead on accuracy of my descriptions, and for how you feel about them. Your arguments are at best irrational, emotional, coming from a place of fear and weakness. And rest assured, you are wrong on the facts almost 99%. Surrender? To what? A dialogue of weakness, fear, lies, and animosity toward law abiding gun owners? You live n America, we have a Bill of Rights and a Constitution. O ur nation was forged by men with guns doing violence against tyrants. If you dislike the environment, there’s always England and Australia to retreat to where the whole nation is a gun free zone–which has increased the levels of assault, rape, and violence in both nations. Check the facts before you go off on another tirade against responsible gun ownership. You might not like it, but the facts are clear–Gun Free Zones are targets of opportunity for deranged psychopathic killers. You haven’t learned that yet, because you don’t want facts–just fantasies. You will never see the gun carried by a responsible gun owner that saves your life, or your families life. However, just so you know—any law abiding citizen car carry openly without a permit–with any gun of their choice. It is legal. The facts are on my side, and the facts are gun owners have already won this argument–you seem to be unwilling to accept it.
“Your arguments are at best irrational, emotional, coming from a place of fear and weakness.”
Project much?!
“Sorry for the dead on accuracy of my descriptions”
Let’s hope your firing accuracy is better than your rhetorical accuracy.
Truth is, Mr. Towe – you lost this argument when you called the vast majority of Americans who don’t choose to go around in their daily lives armed, “cowards”. I feel bad for you, for whatever events in your life caused you to live in such fear that you feel the need to carry a lethal weapon at all times, and to express contempt for those of us who don’t. You seem to be truly a wounded soul, and if you need a hog strapped to your chest to feel safe, so be it. We’ll think of it as a prosthetic, or a service dog, or a blankie.
And like the Constitution protects even those who choose to burn the American flag, we’ll have to accept that you have the right to make us all uncomfortable just to act out on your inner demons.
Is this a great country or what?
the 2nd amendment…arming the F60.0 club for over 200 years…
I agree with Reader Towes. In fact, I say we go further and require fancy restaurants to furnish each table with a complimentary derringer. That way responsible diners won’t have their meal suddenly spoiled by the sinking feeling that they left the babysitter at home with a depleted arsenal.
“In fact, I say we go further and require fancy restaurants to furnish each table with a complimentary derringer”
Perhaps it could be heated by a little sterno can? After all, happiness is…
TG, you dropped in here, Peter. Both your sarcasm and timing for injecting the levity are always appreciated!
Original letter writer as well as cartoonist (same person, perhaps) indicate a child’s grasp of the issue of “restaurant carry” and self defense.