NASHVILLE — Happy-hour beers were going for $5 at Past Perfect, a cavernous bar just off this city’s strip of honky-tonk restaurants and tourist shops when Adam Ringenberg walked in with a loaded 9-millimeter pistol concealed in the front pocket of his gray slacks.
Mr. Ringenberg, a technology consultant, is one of the state’s nearly 300,000 handgun-permit holders who have recently seen their rights greatly expanded by a controversial new law — one of the nation’s first — that allows them to carry loaded firearms into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.
“If someone’s sticking a gun in my face, I’m not relying on their charity to keep me alive,” said Mr. Ringenberg, 30, who said he carries the gun for personal protection when he is not at work.
Gun rights advocates like Mr. Ringenberg may applaud the new law, but many customers, waiters and restaurateurs in this city are dismayed by the decision.
“That’s not cool in my book,” said Art Andersen, 44, as he nursed a Coors Light at Sam’s Sports Bar and Grill near Vanderbilt University. “It opens the door to trouble. It’s giving you the right to be Wyatt Earp.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/us/04guns.html?hp
(Didn't most celluloid Wyatts make the cowhands disarm in town?)
Mr. Ringenberg, a technology consultant, is one of the state’s nearly 300,000 handgun-permit holders who have recently seen their rights greatly expanded by a controversial new law — one of the nation’s first — that allows them to carry loaded firearms into bars and restaurants that serve alcohol.
“If someone’s sticking a gun in my face, I’m not relying on their charity to keep me alive,” said Mr. Ringenberg, 30, who said he carries the gun for personal protection when he is not at work.
Gun rights advocates like Mr. Ringenberg may applaud the new law, but many customers, waiters and restaurateurs in this city are dismayed by the decision.
“That’s not cool in my book,” said Art Andersen, 44, as he nursed a Coors Light at Sam’s Sports Bar and Grill near Vanderbilt University. “It opens the door to trouble. It’s giving you the right to be Wyatt Earp.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/us/04guns.html?hp
(Didn't most celluloid Wyatts make the cowhands disarm in town?)
Comment