With Perdue’s signature, restaurant patrons will be permitted to carry a firearm, but would be barred from drinking while doing so. Violations would be a misdemeanor. Concealed weapons will now be allowed in state — and by extension — local parks. Firearms in purses or under jackets will also be permitted on public transportation.
Opponents of the bill included the Georgia Restaurant Association, which argues that waiters and waitresses shouldn’t be asked to demand a patron’s gun permit before serving a drink. Union drivers had said they would demand bulletproof shields on MARTA buses if the governor signed the bill.
The arguments against allowing people who have already given all ten of their digits over to be recorded by state and federal authorities as well as submitting to a complete GBI and FBI background check to carry weapons are asinine. The idea that MARTA buses are now going to become ground zero for gun battles between the criminals who were ALREADY carrying wherever they felt like carrying and the law-abiding types is ridiculous. If a gun battle between a CCW holder and a criminal erupts on a MARTA bus in my lifetime I’ll be shocked.
The foolish notion that bartenders and waitresses now need to ask patrons to display their CCW prior to being served a drink leaves me flabbergasted. No one has suggested that restaurant employees ask their patrons whether they have prior felonies and are illegally carrying weapons! Why would they suddenly start assuming that a bunch of the “good guys” are going to be packing heat and drinking to excess. This is childish thinking. It’s alarmist, immature and highly irresponsible. People who bother going through the bureaucratic hoops required to be issued a concealed carry permit are not troublemakers. They are the bedrock of civil society. They are the folks who stop to help stranded motorists. They are the type of people who jump into a lake to save someone who is drowning. These are the people who will get your cat out of a tree and expect nothing in return. What the hell is wrong with you people?
The more you try to restrict the good men and women among us the more you encourage the bad men and women among us. No massacres are going to happen because of this sound minded legislation. Georgia society is not going to spiral downward into chaos with Wild West shootouts happening daily on the streets of Atlanta. Anyone who tells you that this law will result in more crime and not less is ill informed, an idiot or perhaps a criminal.