Private citizen with background in product safety/regulation says No to guns in restaurants

Via NCGV's increasingly rarely used Twitter feed,

Dr. Art thinks we shouldn’t “force” restaurants that serve alcohol to allow patrons to carry concealed weapons. More specifically, he thinks that instead of forcing restaurants to post “No Guns Allowed” signs if they wish to ban law abiding concealed carriers, restaurants should be forced to “Opt In” and post “Guns are allowed” signs.

We live in a regional and global economy and as such must look beyond our borders when enacting certain laws.  In North Carolina, as in other states, there are numerous out-of-state visitors (including from abroad) coming here for business and/or pleasure.  And these individuals are important to us as they support job creation and place money into state coffers.  HB111, should it find its way into law, is currently only ‘Opt-Out’, i.e., an owner of an establishment is permitted to post a sign stating that guns are prohibited.  Although an argument might be made for state residents that ignorance of law is no excuse, such an argument should not be applied to those who are not state residents and who would therefore not be expected to be familiar with our laws.  As such, without signage being posted at eating and drinking establishments (and perhaps even public parks) that allow concealed handguns on site, visitors to our state might enter places that they otherwise might not.  As an example, a few years ago Rotary International hosted in our area an exchange group from Australia, a country that enacted strict gun laws following the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre. It was quite clear from discussions with this group that some of them would not have entered an alcohol-serving establishment that permitted loaded concealed weapons on site.  

Get that? Dr. Art thinks that we should consider the feelings of a bunch of anti-gun visitors when we structure the laws of our state. He thinks that we will suffer from reduced tourism and business travel if the scared foreigners decide to forgo coming to North Carolina because they don’t want to be seated next to a guy like me at the local Lone Star Steakhouse.

I have a better idea. If the fearful Aussies are too scared to share a room with me, a guy who has a concealed carry license from 4 different states, then they are free to go to Chicago. In Chicago, the only people who carry guns in restaurant are criminals. That should make them much more comfortable.

I don’t plan on making my state more like a foreign country just to make foreign tourists feel more at home. My family didn’t come to America so that they could turn America into Italy or Scotland. Maybe instead of catering to the anti-rights globalists, we should hand out a brochure when visitors arrive detailing all the things that US Citizens and permanent residents may do in America that are strictly forbidden in other countries. Then we could tell them what they have to do to get permission to stay. It’d be a win-win. The gun-fearing-weenies would tuck tail and run, and the freedom loving foreigners would try to figure out a way to stay permanently.

Have you noticed that in America, we have more guns than people, streets with half a dozen different houses of worship, and people with every different skin color under the sun, but none of the sectarian violence we see in so many other places in the world? Did you think that was an accident?

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