discrimination is discrimination

Noted hoplophobe, anti-rights activist, and general-purpose bigot, Wendi C. Thomas, occasionally has her screeds published in the Commercial Appeal, and today’s helping of bald-faced discrimination and ignorance is certainly no different from her usual fare.

I won’t eat where fellow diners are packing heat.

Well, then, Wendi, I sincerely hope you have not eaten at a fast food joint for the past decade or so, given that it has been entirely legal for handgun carry permit holders to take their firearms into such establishments. Likewise, any restaurant that doe snot serve alcohol has been open to handgun carry permit holders taking their firearms into.
Of course, something tells me you neglected to take those considerations into account when choosing your food sources. I also wonder if you will not shop where your fellow shoppers are “packing heat”, or get gas where people are carrying, or so forth. Because, guess what? In every body of 25 people here in Tennessee, the odds are fairly good that at least one of them has a handgun carry permit, and is probably carrying. And how many hundreds of people are in Wal-Mart at any given time?

And there are many Tennesseans dismayed by the state legislature’s decision last week. They ignored the admonitions of the law enforcement community and the governor’s veto.

I was prevoiusly dismayed at the state of Tennessee’s abridgement of my natural right to self-defense, but I guess that does not really matter to you, does it?
Furthermore, that Legislature did not ignore the law-enforcement community, it ignored the police chief community. There is a distinct and sizeable difference between those two groups, namely that the law-enforcement types are actually the folks out on the streets dealing with citizens on a daily basis, while the chiefs of police are the politicians back in the offices rubbing shoulders with legislators and the like. The fact is, most beat cops think armed populaces are a good deterrent to crime, and few want more gun control. But, hey, misphrasing the debate has always been a standard tactic for anti-rights activists like you, Wendi.
Oh, and as for Governor Phil? Yeah, he is just one guy, last I checked, and has no history in crime-prevention, law-enforcement, or anything similar, at least not that he owns up to on his “about” page.

“If I see someone carrying in a bar and they don’t have a badge, I assume they’re there for ill will,” said Steve Steffens, known online as the blogger Left Wing Cracker.

Well, Steve, I have some good news for you – you are not alone in your discrimination. Not too long ago, bigots like you would have said something like, “If I see someone with a big nose and a beanie walk into a bar and they don’t have a golden start on, I assume they’re there to do evil things.” A little while before that, bigots like you would have said something like, “If I see someone with dark skin walk into a bar and he does not already have a slavery contract, well I will just snap him up and put him to work on my farm.”
Bigots like you, Steve, have existed throughout the centuries, and you want to know the wonderful thing about them? Invariably, they lose. It must suck to have historical precedent working against you….

“There’s a certain mindset it takes to carry a gun everywhere, and it’s not a good mindset,” Steffens said.

My wanting to protect myself and my family from crime is “not a good mindset”?
A 5’4″ 125-pounds-soaking-wet woman wanting to protect herself from a 6’6″ 300-pound rapist is “not a good mindset”?
Tennesseeans wanting to protect themselves from the possibility of being one of the 397 murders, 2,174 rapes, 11,022 robberies, and 32,787 aggrivated assaults in Tennessee in 2007 is “not a good mindset”?
Crap on a crutch, Steve. Could you have your head any more firmly planted up your ass?
Crime happens. Criminals attack innocent citizens. And those citizens’ safety is their own responsibility. Now, you can shirk that responsibility, if you choose to, and instead rely on the actions of others (namely, the police). But no one else bears a responsibility to protect you – not even the hard-working police officers of our state. If you want to choose to be a victim, that is your choice, and you are welcome to it. But the very second you start aiding and abetting the violent criminals who do exist… then you become a despicable scoundrel not worthy of consideration or merit.

“If you have to carry to make yourself feel safe, you don’t need to have a gun.”

Ahh, that old strawman. Sorry, Steve, I do not carry a fiream to feel safe – I carry a firearm to be safe. Likewise, the rest of these hold true for the vast majority of people who decide to be responsible for their own safety (this blockquote is not from the Commercial Appeal article):

I don’t carry a gun to kill people. I carry a gun to keep from being killed.

I don’t carry a gun to scare people. I carry a gun because sometimes this world can be a scary place.

I don’t carry a gun because I’m paranoid. I carry a gun because there are real threats in the world.

I don’t carry a gun because I’m evil. I carry a gun because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the world.

I don’t carry a gun because I hate the government. I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.

I don’t carry a gun because I’m angry. I carry a gun so that I don’t have to spend the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared.

I don’t carry a gun because I want to shoot someone. I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed, and not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.

I don’t carry a gun because I’m a cowboy. I carry a gun because, when I die and go to heaven, I want to be a cowboy.

I don’t carry a gun to make me feel like a man. I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.

I don’t carry a gun because I feel inadequate. I carry a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate.

I don’t carry a gun because I love it. I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to me.

Police Protection is an oxymoron. Free citizens must protect themselves. Police do not protect you from crime, they usually just investigate the crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess.

Personally, I carry a gun because I’m too young to die and too old to take an ass whoopin’.

Likewise, I wear a seatbelt not to feel safe, but to be safe. I keep a fire extinguisher in my kitchen not to feel safe, but to be safe. I am very mindful of my surroundings wherever I am not to feel safe, but to be safe.
But, as usual, the hoplophobes and anti-rights activists (but I repeat myself) are trying to misphrase the situation to better assist their weak and indefensible positions… Nothing new under the sun, indeed.

Steffens, a longtime Memphian and gun owner, has no desire to dine with people who are carrying guns, so much so that he’s started a Web site at [link redacted] to try to catalog the spots in Tennessee where you can dine gun-free, and plans to work with the site I created at [link redacted] to do the same thing.

Well, I guess I should be the grateful one, and thank the hoplophobes for saving us the legwork of identifying which restaurants respect our individual rights to self-defense, and which do not. Make no mistake – given that restaurants are private property, they can regulate whatever they so desire, however they so desire. However, given that my money is my money, I will vote with it, and not support those establishments where they would rather me be a defenseless victim.
Likewise, I wonder if anyone has developed a website tracking restaurants where you can dine colored-person-free, or gay-person-free?

The other side will argue that folks without permits are probably packing at restaurants right now — and I need law-abiding, pistol-packing vigilantes to protect me.

But in 37 years of dining out, I have not been shot. Nor have I had to gaze at a firearm while I eat. And I like it that way.

How coincidental! We were just talking about this kind of specious logic. Robb came up with the more-appropriate analogies of, “I have never broken my leg, therefore nobody will ever break theirs,” or “I have never been in an accident before, therefore all seatbelts should be banned,” but I think all three analogies adequately demonstrate just how stupid Wendi’s rationale is.

Now the gun lobby, those are some intense folks. So intense that they’ve identified all the lawmen (and women) who stood by Gov. Phil Bredesen as he vetoed the bill and plan on trying to be sure they don’t get re-elected, or, in some other way, hassle them for exercising their First Amendment rights in a way they’re convinced erodes their Second Amendment rights.

So not re-electing representatives who do not share my opinion on the Constitution is “hassling them for exercising their First Amendment rights”?
Am I no longer permitted to vote against people I disagree with?
Funny, and here I thought that was the very basis of this Constitutional republic we live in…
In a similar vein to Wendi’s specious logic, though, we have already discussed holding public officials accountable for their actions. As human beings, and American citizens, they are more than welcome to express any opinion or stance they so desire, however they so desire. However, if they are doing so as an official government-employed entity, then it is my duty as an American citizen and Tennesseean resident to hold them accountable for those words, and it is further my duty as a voting citizen to let them know what I think of those words through that vote. That is how our country works, and that is how our country is supposed to work.
Deal with it already.

There’s nothing good about the new law, except that it allows individual restaurants to make a choice — to cater to the crowd that would not like a side of lead with a side of broccoli or to assume the risks involved with an establishment full of gun-toters, because they know they’re welcome there.

You are, of course, assuming that current law and those signs you so desperately want posted will actually stop people from carrying into restaurants. You see, criminals do not care about the laws, they do not care about signs, and they do not care about your particular breed of bigoted discrimination. They are going to carry their firearms wherever they so desire, and a correlation between “gun free zones” and criminal violence is pretty much a given.
Furthermore, here in Tennessee, there are risks for private establishments not allowing their customers to legally defend themselves. According to the Tennessee Supreme Court ruling in the case of McClung vs. Delta Square Limited Partnership, as passed down on 28OCT96, private companies are responsible for the safety of their customers anywhere on their property, including the parking lots surrounding their establishment. As such, if I am rendered defenseless by a restaurant (or any private establishment), and am then a victim of a crime on their property, you can bloody well count on me suing the company for not allowing me to look after my own safety… and I can assure you I am not alone.
Wendi C. Thomas is a documented racist, so it really should come as no surprise to anyone that her discrimination does not stop at matters of skin tone. However, her outright bigotry against anyone who would dare stand up on their own and take personal responsibility for their own safety and self-defense is just as despicable as her discrimination against folks with pale skin… if not moreso.