When show and tell meets "Shoot 'Em Up"

 photo: babble.com

Giovanni’s Bistro in Tennessee is a classy joint. The rustic atmosphere is reminiscent of a chic Italian cafe. I’m sure it attracts a high-end crowd. My brain would be doing cerebral Olympics figuring out which fork to use.


It is easy to imagine floating into such a restaurant, dolled up and ready for a sophisticated gastronomic experience.


Giovanni’s is also the ideal location for a shoot out: bloody, gory, elaborate and public. It is now one of many establishments where any patron can legally carry a gun. For those of us who aren’t Wyatt Erp, this may be disconcerting.


Tennessee, Arizona, Georgia and Virginia recently enacted laws explicitly allowing loaded guns in bars. (Eighteen other states allow weapons in restaurants that serve alcohol.) This is great because firearms and mental lubricants are a great combination.


However, under Tennessee’s new law, gun permit holders are not supposed to drink alcohol while carrying their weapons.


Did you also know that people under 21 aren’t permitted to drink? In case you didn’t go to high school, you should know that people occasionally ignore laws of this nature.


You can bring your gun to the bar, but no drinking? So gun slingers are hauling their weapons of minimal destruction into places just for exposition? As far as I understand people go to bars to drink. Now I guess you go to bars to show off your gun.


“If someone’s sticking a gun in my face, I’m not relying on their charity to keep me alive,” said Mr. Ringenberg, a Tennessee resident, to the New York Times last week. Mr. Ringenberg carries the gun for personal protection when he is not at work.


I know I am relieved to know that conscientious citizens such as Mr. Ringenber can take the law into his own hands at any moment.


Let’s talk Second Amendment. The Constitution is great. I’ve been referred to as a First Amendment nut on more than one occasion.


However, it seems to me that as much as we have the right to bear arms, toting a gun in a bar or restaurant is completely asinine. If you feel that your life is in jeopardy every time you leave the house I recommend A.) psychological assistance and B.) more professional law enforcement.


In a world where we feel the necessity to carry weapons, we invoke mutually assured destruction. People will suffer. Citizens will die.