As a follow-up to the bar shooting in Tellico Plains, it is looking like the shooter really, honestly, and truly did not have a handgun carry permit:
“He doesn’t have a permit for the gun as far as we know,” Monroe County Sheriff Bill Bivens said. “Some people have said this shooting happened because of the ‘guns in bars’ law, but I’m not sure it applies here as he didn’t have a permit to start with. And while it might seem obvious alcohol was involved, we don’t know yet whether anybody involved was drunk above the legal limit.”
“… as far as we know” basically boils down to cover-your-ass-talk on the part of the Sheriff (not that I blame him, just saying) – the second a police officer runs your driver’s license here in Tennessee, he or she knows whether or not have you a handgun carry permit. The serial numbers on the two cards are identical, and the two database records are linked. The police department down in Monroe County literally could not have booked the shooter without knowing whether or not he had a permit.
I particularly like the dig on the part of the Sheriff against those who would capitalize on this unfortunate event to demonize the recent law-change allowing law-abiding handgun carry permit holders to take their firearms into establishments that serve alcohol… Gotta love a police officer who is willing to speak that plainly.
WizardPC already covered the “affirmative defense” nuances, so that explains why the shooter was released without charges (yet – a grand jury may still determine the shooting was not justified, in which case the “affirmative defense” clause disappears), and the intolerant bigots over at KnoxViews are not only holding fast to their discrimination, but they are trying to defend it.
Trying… and failing. Not only do the writers there have no problem baselessly vilifying law-abiding citizens without cause or reason, but they stand by that fallacious and disproven prejudice regardless of the developing facts of the situation.
Irrational hatred like that boggles my mind…
not grasping the concept
We have talked about Randy Rayburn here at “walls of the city” a few times before, but his most-recent load of gos-se deserves some renewed attention: What is the statute of limitations on a bad idea that is historically unsound…