Why? Well, who is doing the database-updating? Surely not the bigoted and hoplophobic editor, Chris Peck! Nope. If one were to look at the “Staff” page for the Commercial Appeal (unlinked-to, for obvious reasons), one would find an individual with the title of “Data Reporter”. Interestingly, the aforementioned privacy-invading database is categorized under the “Data” section of the Commercial Appeal‘s webpage. Coincidence? I think not!

I name you, Grant Smith!

One Google search later, we find out that our assumption is correct – Grant Smith actually has the nerve to claim the intrusive database as his work. Have to give him credit for that, I suppose.

However, from his weblog and his Twitter feed, it becomes apparent that he lives in Memphis. As such, we have the basic set of information available through the CA’s database: full name and city. Time to put that information to use.

A quick hop over to the Shelby County Assessor’s Office tells us that the Commercial Appeal must not pay their “freelance journalist, data specialist” employees all that much, given Grant’s current abode is not exactly what you would call “posh”. And, really, living at 1845 York Avenue in Memphis must be something of a drag, what with four rail tracks less than two hundred feet from your house. Feel free to poke him if you would like to comisserate over rambunctious neighbors.

All of that information was aquired with nothing more than his first and last names and city of residence, and all were discovered through free-and-public methods. And, as with my reciprocal listing, I will be more than happy to take this information down as soon as the Commercial Appeal’s distasteful database goes away – fair is fair, after all.

So, tell me Grant, how does the shoe feel on the other foot?

In the end, he is absolutely right – public data is exactly that: public. However, that data would remain public with or without the Commercial Appeal oh-so-kindly presenting it in an easy-to-search, easy-to-stalk database. Additionally, just because something is public, that does not mean it should be public – drivers’ license records are sealed here in Tennessee. Why should handgun carry permits be any different? Thankfully, there are those of us concerned enough with our own personal privacy to be working towards that end, and we are definitely making progress.

No matter how you cut it, the Commercial Appeal’s actions are directly and knowingly endangering law-abiding Tennessee residents – is that really something to be proud of?

This session Todd and other promoters of the measure are back with a clarification. They want guns to be carried into bars, after all. And restaurateurs who took the state to court over the matter will be punished with a provision in the new bill that requires any restaurants or “bars” where guns are banned to post large signs at every entrance bearing a handgun with a red circle and slash over it.

Punished? Frakking punished?! You have to be kidding me. It is now considered “punishment” for a restaurant to have to post a “No firearms allowed” sign if they actually do not want to permit firearms on their property? Is it also a “punishment” to have to put up a “No shirt, no shoes, no service” sign if you do not want to have to deal with hairy-chested, hobbit-toed customers showing off their goodies?

For that matter, what about the restaurant owners (and there are more than a few) who have absolutely no problems serving people who are legally carrying firearms? They are currently being barred, by governmental edict, from allowing those law-abiding citizens to come onto their property with their legal sidearms – what about their predicament?

And why am I not surprised that the Commercial Appeal comes down in support of the government dictating the will of anti-rights advocates, but also against individual organizations and corporations doing as they please? Those poor, poor, anti-gun restauranteurs… they will have to wear their anti-rights bigotry on their restaurants’ sleeves, rather than inducing the government to force their desires onto everyone, regardless of everyone else’s wishes. I almost feel sorry for them.

Or not.

Message to restaurateurs: Oppose us on this issue, and you will pay a price.

Jesus Christ on a pogostick – this is not some kind of dick-waving contest between the politicians and the restaurant owners, this is we, the people, demanding that the government get out of the way of our natural, inalienable right to self-defense. And if it ends up that a restaurant owner exercising his property rights to refuse service to whomever he wants suffers from a decrease in revenues, perhaps he should reconsider which he holds to be more important – his own personal bigotry or his profits.

The point is that the choice will be up to him, as it always should have been. Of course, the Commercial Appeal has a history of opposing choice.

All of the energy and time expended on guns in bars might make political sense, at least, if this was something most Tennesseans want.

Proponents are vocal, to be sure, but a Middle Tennessee State University statewide telephone poll of 716 randomly selected adults, with an error margin of plus or minus four percentage points, found 60 percent of us opposed to guns in restaurants and 80 percent against allowing them in bars.

*giggle* So, an un-linked-to (you would think that the editorial staff of the Commercial Appeal would be intelligent enough to figure out hyperlinks) telephone poll of 0.0114% of the population of Tennessee should be taken as an accurate indicator of the desires of that population as a whole?

To begin with, the findings of the above-referenced poll are available here, though absolutely no mention is given towards the specific questions, and how they were worded, and none of the actual polling data is available for public view. Likewise, unsurprisingly, the demographic information recorded from those polled differed from the statistical census information of Tennessee – unsurprisingly, because people are going increasingly wireless (12.8% of households in 2006 had no landline, ours included), and cellphones are not and cannot legally be included in telephone polls. Of course, the pollsters tried to “weight” their recorded demographics to make it come out looking correct, but once you start doing that, the potential for bias and error increases significantly.

And I will bet a dollar to anyone willing to take it that the question regarding the “guns in bars” made no mention of the fact that drinking while carrying would still be 100% illegal.

Of course, this is all without even touching the even-less-scientific polls conducted by the Commercial Appeal: will you look for restaurants that do not allow guns (only 26% of the respondents said “yes”); would you feel more or less safe in a restaurant where fellow patrons could carry their handguns (as if “feelings” matter, but only 14% said “less safe”); and, more-recently, should state legislators override the ruling that blocked handgun carry permit holders from going armed in places serving alcohol (88% said “yes”). On average, those polls had twice the number of responses as the MTSU’s telephone count.

Funny how the anonymous writer of this particular editorial neglected to mention the polls at the Commercial Appeal itself… who wants to bet he would have, if only they had gone they way he wanted?

The measure has also encountered opposition from those who understand the issue perhaps better than anyone — top brass in law enforcement agencies across the state.

Strange how the anonymous author of this editorial neglected to mention the fact that the original sponsor of the original bill, Representative Curry Todd, is a retired police officer himself.

It is additionally strange how this nameless author neglected to mention that the police chiefs standing behind Governor Bredesen during his veto of the original bill were used for a publicity opportunity, and might or might not actually support the bill.

And, finally, perhaps this nameless author can explain to me why my rights, and the choices of restauranteurs, should be limited on the opinions of elected politicians (which is all Sheriffs are here in Tennessee), especially in light of the 41 other states that allow law-abiding citizens to carry firearms into restaurants that serve alcohol – 41 other states that have hardly had any problems at all.

Restaurant owners, represented by the Tennessee Hospitality Association, have serious problems with the legislation.

They have no way to police a provision of the bill that prohibits armed patrons from consuming alcohol. What are they supposed to do? Frisk everyone who orders a drink?

NEWSFLASH: They have no way to police the provisions of the current law that ban people carrying handguns from entering restaurants that serve alcohol. None. If I were to strap on my IWB holster, and drop a shirt over it, I could go into any restaurant in this state, sit down, have a meal, get up, and leave, and no one would know that I was armed except me. Even worse, I could have an alcoholic drink with that meal, and still no one would know.

Speaking of not knowing things, I never knew someone could be such an idiot and still manage to run a business like a restaurant – and those restaurant owners are unquestionable idiots if they consider the above rationale a good one for keeping the status quo.

They also strenuously object to being forced — if they don’t want guns in their establishments — to post signs that will make potential customers think twice about wandering into a place where an ominous “no guns” declaration is necessary.

Fine. So do not put up the sign. How hard is that?

Aww, but like so many petty would-be totalitarians before them, these restaurant owners want to have their cake and eat it too, by convincing the public that it is the big mean government that is keeping them from bringing their firearms into restaurants… at those restaurant owners’ request, of course. Well, I am not at all sorry to say that it is coming up on time to grow the frak up, develop a backbone, and take responsibility for your actions – put up a sign or not, but now the choice will be yours, not some faceless government weenie’s.

And speaking of choices, what about those who want to be able to open their doors to handgun carry permit holders and their firearms. Why are the property rights of the anti-firearm restaurant owners somehow suddenly more important than the property rights of the pro-firearm, or even neutral, restaurant owners? Do we really need to point out how incongruous that is?

*sigh* Now I remember why I stopped fisking these worthless editorials – every last one of them is the same hysteria, wrapped up in the same “it is good for the government to control everything” claptrap, decorated with the same “we do not care about your rights” bow, only the entire package gets spraypainted a slightly different shade of cat-barf green each time around. I got tired of the repackage and repost nonsense a while ago, and it does not look as though the Commercial Appeal has improved their writing style any… at least, at this point, it is patently obvious that they are adamantly and absolutely against firearms, individual rights, and the protection/preservation of either, especially with the “we are defeated but this still sucks” ending of their most-recent editorial. I guess I should congratulate the editorial staff of the Commercial Appeal for finally moving past denial, and into the realm of acceptance – of course, if this new bill is at all successful, something tells me to expect additional nonsensical propaganda pieces “editorials” from their presses.

Oh, and as if there was any doubt, this fulmination was most likely the product of Chris Peck, and if not him, someone else on the editorial staff of the Commercial Appeal, though it would appear as though the author of this particular editorial lacks the backbone necessary to put his name to it. I will try to act surprised.

A man wielding a knife was shot and killed about 3 p.m. Friday in a Family Dollar store parking lot in Frayser.

Just a guy holding a knife, and he was shot and killed? What the hell is up with that? Well, the predictably anti-self-defense Commercial Appeal leaves out a few pertinent details:

Police say a man with a knife raced through the parking lot just after 3:00 p.m.. Witnesses say the man chased a delivery driver and others, but was killed when he tried to lunge his knife at one driver leaving the parking lot. The driver pulled a gun and killed his attacker on the spot.

[...]

Witnesses say two little girls were inside the car when the attacker lunged at the driver.

“He had his two step-daughters in the car with him. So, he really was trying to look out for them when he shot him,” says Brandon Jones, who says the girls appeared to be younger than ten. “Yeah, they saw everything that happened. One of them was real shaken.”

Huh. Well, that certainly changes the tone of the “police report”. Unfortunately, it gets worse – back to the Commercial Appeal‘s take on things:

The suspect waited in the parking lot after the shooting until police arrived and took him into custody, according to officers.

Well, yeah, that would make sense – after all, the suspect was full of holes at this point, and probably is not going to be going anywhere any time soon…

Oh. Wait. By “suspect”, the Commercial Appeal means the armed citizen who defended himself and his two small children from a depraved, knife-wielding attacker. So what is he “suspected” of? Nothing.

A young man was patted down and placed in the rear of a squad car. At this point, investigators do not consider this a murder, rather an apparent case of self defense.

As usual, the Commercial Appeal manages to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that some “authorized journalists” and media outlets are simply incapable of abandoning their personal bigotry, even for a four-line news blurb. Good job, numbnuts.

It has been a little while since I posted on the privacy-invading actions of Chris Peck and the rest of his editorial staff at the Commercial Appeal (honestly, it got kind of boring and repetitive to shoot down the same idiotic, hoplophobic arguments over and over and over again), but this is something we cannot simply let abide. Indiana is enjoying a remarkable degree of success at slapping the mitts of the Indianapolis Star, and it is well past time for us to do the same to the Commercial Appeal.

Here is to hoping that our legislator can get their collective acts together and protect the interests and rights of their constituents (and employers).

The law, which was to take effect Friday, would have allowed the Nebraska State Patrol to post the names of all registered sex offenders on its Web site, including those at low risk to reoffend.

A group of 20 convicted sex offenders affected by the law has been seeking to have it ruled unconstitutional. On Thursday, less than seven hours before the law was to take effect, District Judge William Zastera issued a temporary order barring the state from enforcing it.

He said the plaintiffs would be irreparably harmed if the public notification occurred before the issue could be fully litigated. He said the temporary order should remain in effect at least until 10 a.m. Monday, when he set a hearing in Sarpy County District Court.

We law-abiding, background-checked, trained, and licensed citizens are being treated, and punished, no differently than child pornographers and rapists of minors. Exactly how is that acceptable?
(Courtesy of Joe Huffman.)

In addition, the judges awarded these APME First Amendment Citations:

_ The Memphis (Tenn.) Commercial Appeal for stories and a searchable database of state handgun carry permit holders.

I would imagine that there are also a number of rapists, absuive husbands/boyfriends, and other such individuals who would like to give the Commercial Appeal an award for reuniting them with their long-lost flames…
Now, if you will excuse me… I think I just threw up in my mouth… a lot.
(Courtesy of Live from the (upper) Texas Gulf Coast.)

So, the study found an incredibly small percentage of handgun carry permit holders committed an equally incredibly small percentage of crimes. I like this study method. See, based on my study I have determined that at least ten reporters have been arrested for molesting children recently. And, of course, another search turns up several incidents of anti-gun activists having a proven history of violent behavior. See how stupid that sounds?

I would, however, point out that the VPC study, as quoted by the Commercial Appeal, says this:

Handgun permit holders have killed at least 44 private citizens, resulting in criminal charges or the suicide of the shooter.

Emphasis added, but do pay attention to it – they used the word “killed” and not the word “murdered“, and they specified “criminal charges”, but not “criminal convictions“. Both of those are remarkably significant rephrasings of the debate, and one should pay very close attention to them – it is easily probable that there were 44 instances of defensive gun use in the past two years wherein the would-be victim was brought up on criminal charges but was never convicted. In some jurisdictions, if a person is dead on the scene, there are going to be criminal charges, regardless of the justification of the person doing the killing. However, those charges can be dropped, dismissed, or otherwise discarded in the future – a fact very carefully left out by the VPC and the Commercial Appeal.
JD, over at Ballistic Deanimation, takes a specific look at the numbers involved:

They cite 51 murders by CCW holders in a 2-year period. In that same two years, if we assume the numbers mirror the 2006/2007 UCR data, the general population would have committed approximately 32,000 murders, give or take a thousand.

32,000/51= 627.45 murders for every murder by a CCW holder. My math skils are shit, but (correct me if I’m wrong) that looks like .16% of homicides are committed by CCW holders, or such a small number as to be statistically irrelevant and well within the margin of error for just about any statistical report. They also fall well to the extremes on any bell curve of behavior.

To be specific, the FBI reports 31,679 murders an non-negligent homicides in 2006 and 2007, and we are assuming that from May 2007 to April 2009, the numbers will be approximately the same. 54 killings (once you factor in the three added by Richard Locker) out of those estimated 31,000 murders (the numbers were declining from 2006 to 2007, as the numbers are for all violent crimes here in America) comes out to 0.1742% of the murders committed in America in those two years. Assuming no decline, the result is 0.1705%.
A number that small is beyond statistically insignificant – as JD comments, most studies cannot even have resolution of sufficient detail to accurately account for percentages that small.
Finally, Minneapolis Gun Rights Examiner John Pierce has a blow-by-blow examination of how the VPC “study” is inherently fallacious, as well as the quote of the day:

But now, after 21 years of diligent hand-wringing by the VPC and their ilk, there are only 2 states remaining which do not allow concealed carry and 39 states have passed “shall-issue” laws which require that all citizens who meet the statutory requirements be issued a permit without the nepotism, elitism and cronyism that are the hallmarks of the “may-issue” process.

I would further add that while the National Concealed Carry Reciprocity Amendment (otherwise known as the Thune Amendment) failed today (by just two votes), it actually made it to a floor vote today – that alone is an indication of how much more open the American political climate is to citizens being able to exercise their civil rights. Furthermore, 58 Senators voted in support of it – almost all of the Republicans, and at least 1/3 of the Democrats. If that is not sufficient to cause hoplophobes around the world to start changing their underwear, I do not know what is.
As one last jab at the VPC and their complicit lackeys at the Commercial Appeal, I would point out that in the two years in question, and according to the VPC’s own “study”, over 3,500,000 concealed carry permit holders did not kill someone in a manner that resulted in criminal charges. 54 potential (but not provable) criminals out of a sample body of over 3,500,000 citizens comes out to a percentage of 0.00154%. Yes, the Violence Policy Center (and the Commercial Appeal, by extension and association) is proposing stripping over 3.5 million people of their civil rights just because 0.00154% of them might not be able to behave.
How stupid is that?

Now that the Tennessee General Assembly has given final approval to handguns in restaurants that serve booze, the onus falls on restaurant and bar owners to decide if they want weapons in their businesses.

You say that like it is a bad thing, Chris.
The fact is, restaurants always should have had the choice as to whether or not law-abiding handgun carry permit holders could bring their firearms onto the restaurant premises or not. That choice was never one for any government to make, and the government returning the choice to the restaurants was the right thing to do. Previously, if a restuarant owner wanted to open his doors to legally-armed individuals, he or she had to give up selling any form of alcohol in order to do so. Now, restaurants that want to continue looking like they keep firearms out can do so, and restaurants that want to allow permitted individuals to bring their firearms can also do so.
From the “business decision” standpoint, this new law-change is a win-win scenario.

But some restaurateurs are naturally concerned about losing customers no matter how they decide. They also wonder about enforcement of the no-drinking provision. If the weapon is properly concealed, as it should be, how is the proprietor to know who’s carrying before the drinks are served? Or whether the gun owner has already downed a few drinks before arriving.

First, handgun carry permit holders are not required to conceal their firearms. Tennessee allows for both open and concealed carry of one’s firearm, as clarified by Tennessee State Attorney General Opinion 05-154: “Neither Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-17-1351, nor any other statute governing the carrying of firearms, requires the holder of a handgun carry permit to carry the handgun in a concealed manner.” At this point in the debate, Chris cannot claim ignorance concerning open carry, so I can only conclude that it was his bigotry shining through when he said firearms “should” be “properly concealed”.
Because nobody wants to have to see those icky colored peop… er… handguns.
Second, the “no-drinking provision” has been in place for a very long time now, and until July 14th, firearms are still not legally permitted into restaurants that serve alcohol. As such, how are proprietors to know now who is carrying before drinks are served? If you think people are going to break the law concerning carrying and drinking, then why do you not think people were not breaking the law concerning carrying into restaurants.
Either laws mean something, or they do not. Which is it?

Meanwhile, existing state law appears to make it unlikely that local elected leaders can force businesses that have beer permits to forbid weapons as a condition for retaining the permit.

Yes, because forcing businesses with beer permits to forbid weapons while businesses with wine and liquor permits do not have to makes all kinds of sense.
Wait… no it does not…
And again with that “force” concept… when was it the government’s business to force anyone to do anything except not detrimentally affect other people? Why is allowing restaurants to decide whether or not they want to prohibit firearms such a bad thing?

The fact that metro Nashville officials were considering such a move this week underscores how unpopular the new state law is among local elected leaders and top law enforcement officials.

Uh, no, it just underscores how unpopular the new state law is among Nashville officials. Nothing more, nothing less.

It’s too bad legislators paid more attention to pro-gun lobbyists looking over their shoulders in Nashville than local leaders around the state who believe allowing guns in places that serve alcohol is a terrible idea.

You really do not understand how the Tennessee government works, do you, Chris? The state legislators are elected to represent their constituents. If you feel something should be one way or another, you contact your duly-elected representative, and let them know what you think.
Given that the bill allowing me and my 220,000+ fellow handgun carry permit holders to carry our firearms into restaurants passed, I would guess that we pro-rights individuals were a little more vocal than you anti-rights hoplophobes. Those mythical “local leaders” (who you never name, but constantly refer to) had their chance to speak up, and apparently they either did not do so, or did not do so enough. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and it would appear as though the anti-rights activists throughout Tennessee were nowhere near involved enough to get their desired outcome.
Them’s the breaks.
It really is amazing how far Chris Peck and the rest of the editorial staff of the Commercial Appeal are willing to take their hoplophobia… The bill has passed, the deed is done, and they are still frothing at the mouth. One really wonders what these anti-rights activists will have to write about when this stops being such a hot-button issue.

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.

About 5 percent of Tennesseans 21 and older have permits to carry handguns. Their voice has been disproportionately loud in the legislature this spring, along with the National Rifle Association and Tennessee Firearms Association.

Funny, here I thought it was our right, if not our outright duty, to contact our duly-elected representatives and inform them of what we would like them to do. Furthermore, if the hoplophobes of Tennessee were so very concerned about these bills being passed, they, too, could have contacted their duly-elected represenatives and informed them of their particular opinions on matters.
Oddly enough, that is how the constitutional republic form of government we have is supposed to work. If you speak up, your voice is heard, and your representative is supposed to take it into consideration. If you do not speak up, your voice is not heard, and no one cares. If lots and lots and lots of people speak up in support of a particular piece of legislation, guess what happens?
The only people the hoplophobes of Tennessee have to blame for these pro-firearm-owner-rights bills being considered/passed are themselves. Well, themselves, and the Commercial Appeal, for stirring up firearm owners so much…

The TFA illustrated the tenor of the debate last week when it asked members to help “compile a list of (the) names, districts and supervisors” of police officers and prosecutors who supported Bredesen’s veto, a move characterized by Nashville-Davidson County Police Chief Ronal Serpas as an effort “to chill people’s rights to speak their opinion.”

Ho. Ly. Crap.
The Commercial Appeal – the same newspaper that invaded the privacy of over 220,000 law-abiding Tennessee handgun carry permit holders – actually has the unmitigated gall to call out the Tennessee Firearms Association for daring to do the same exact thing?
Only, wait, it is not the same exact thing – public officials, by dint of being public officials, on the government payroll, and servants of the people, can be held accountable to the people whenever the people feel like it. The police officers standing behind Governor Phil while he vetoed the bill were there in uniform, and thus on official duty – as such, they can be held accountable for that action, and they should bloody well be identified. Hell, if nothing else, they were wearing name tags on their uniforms. Now, if they wanted to stand behind the Governor out of uniform, as private citizens, and “speak their opinion” through their presence, that is another matter entirely… but the second police officers (or any uniformed government official) starts doing something in uniform, he or she can immediately be held accountable to those who are paying his or her salary – in this case, the residents of Tennessee. If the officials in question do not like this arrangement, I would suggest that they find a new line of work.
On the flip side, Chris Peck and the rest of the editorial staff of the Commercial Appeal took it upon themselves to violate the privacy of hundreds of thousands of private citizens, for no better reason than to expose, villify, and otherwise intimidate those law-abiding citizens. These citizens are not on the public’s payroll, they are not operating as official governmental represenatives, and they are not public officials. They are private citizens, in every definition of the word “private”, and the Chicken Little Appeal exposed its bigotry and discrimination by doing its damnest to violate that privacy.
Chris, you are nowhere near the high ground on this one.

If the veto is overridden, it will be up to local governments, restaurant and bar owners to reduce the risks the public faces daily as a result of a proliferation of handguns in places where they don’t belong.

Actually, I am not sure if the local governments will have a say in this particular circumstance. They have a vote concerning local parks because that particular bill was written expressly to allow them to have a vote – the restaurant will was not. How does preemption work in Tennessee?
And, explain to me again how it is a bad thing for an individual business to decide whether or not firearms should be legally permitted on its premises? How is it bad for business owners/managers to have that freedom? It is, after all, their property – what if restaurant managers had been wanting to allow handgun carry permit holders to carry their handguns into those restaurants, but the government was standing in their way? Oh, right, I forget – you only care about demonizing firearms and firearm owners at every opportunity possible.
And speaking of that demonization, what “risks” does the public “face daily” due to handguns being in places where they do belong? As usual, I will point out that Tennessee is one of only ten states left in the Union wherein licensed individuals cannot carry their handguns into restaurants that serve alcohol. Where are the examples of these nebulous risks? Furthermore, Texas, Florida, Oregon, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and other states (even Massafrakkingchussetts) allow permit holders to drink alcohol while they are carrying, so long as they remain under the legal limit. Where are the manifestations of these specious “risks”?

The Tennessee General Assembly seems eager and poised to make Tennessee a more dangerous place.

And what proof do you have for that assertation? What evidence? Of those 40 other states that allow handgun carry permit holders to bring their firearms into restaurants that serve alcohol, which ones have become “more dangrous places” due to the passage of those laws? What statistics do you have to bring forward?
Oh, right, nothing. Otherwise you would have linked to them, included them, or even just alluded to them. But as it is, you are just continuing the Commercial Appeal‘s standard strategy of spouting bigoted, discriminatory fear-mongering.
Just remember, oh ye hoplophobic editors of the Commercial Appeal – when these pro-rights bills pass, you all will have helped them along. Were all of your bigoted rantings and ravings worth it?

The state legislature has now sent three substantive expansions of Tennessee’s handgun-carry permit law to Gov. Phil Bredesen, who can sign them into law, veto them, or allow them to become law without his signature:

– HB716: Allows people with handgun-carry permits to carry in all state, local and national parks in Tennessee, but lets city councils and county commissions vote to exclude guns in parks under their jurisdictions.

– HB390: Allows permit holders to carry rifles and shotguns in private vehicles with ammunition loaded into the guns’ magazines, but not chambered. Permit holders are currently allowed to carry loaded pistols but no one is allowed under current law to carry long guns and their ammunition in the same compartment of a car or truck.

– HB962: Allows permit holders to carry guns into restaurants and other places that serve alcohol if they are not consuming alcohol themselves. Business owners could post signs banning guns in their properties. Bredesen has until Monday to act on that bill.

Regarding HB0716 and HB0390, Governor Bredesen has 10 days to sign them or veto them once they get to his desk later this week, otherwise they are automatically passed, much like the situation might be on Monday if our Governor has not broken out a pen concerning HB0962.
It is amazing to me how difficult and complicated the situations concerning these bills has become… after all, who would have thought that it would be so hard to legally defend myself and my family wherever we might be? Is not self-defense already a natural right inherent to us due to being humans?

Your May 20 editorial missed the mark entirely. Allowing concealed carry permit holders to carry guns in parks is not about an “appetite to mix firearms with family fun.” It’s about defending the most precious thing we have as human beings — our lives and the lives of our loved ones.

You claim that “no one has put forth any credible argument that violent behavior is so rampant inside these parks that permit holders” should need to carry a firearm. Well, here are some hard facts. The National Park Service’s most recent report revealed that 11 murders, 35 rapes, 61 robberies and 261 aggravated assaults occurred on parklands in 2006. Tennesseans shouldn’t have to wait to be the victim of a violent crime in a park before they are given the option to arm themselves.

Ask yourself: If a criminal or an animal emerges from the woods intent on harming you or your family, which would you rather have inside your picnic basket, a handgun or a hot dog? I’ll take both.

Chris W. Cox
Chief lobbyist, National Rifle Association Institute for Legislation Action

368 violent crimes in National Parks three years ago, and hoplophobes still say that no one has any cause to need a firearm in a park. Yeah… you all go on shoving your heads in the sand – me, I will defend me and mine, thank you very kindly.

No one has put forth any credible argument that violent behavior is so rampant inside these parks that permit holders should legally start packing their pistols along with their picnic baskets.

Sorry, Chris, but the onus is on you to explain why I, as a law-abiding, peaceful, private, licensed citizen should not be permitted to carry my firearm in a non-violent, non-threatening manner wherever I so choose or desire. The right to self defense is acknowledged by the Declaration of Independence, and the Second Amendment of the Constitution protects that right, among others. Who are you to say I should be stripped of that right simply because you have an irrational, emotional, illogical, and childish fear of firearms?
However, while an explanation for me wanting to exercise my naturally-granted, Constitutionally-protected rights is certainly not required, Chris wanted examples of “violent behavior” taking place in the parks around the state, and I can certainly answer an individual’s request for information. Unfortunately (and conenviently for Chris), those kinds of statistics are somewhat difficult to check, especially in the largely-rural swaths of Tennessee. However, courtesy of a commenter at the Commercial Appeal and his sources at Memphis’ CyberWatch, we have this information:

Rapes taking place in Memphis within three city blocks of a park:

2/18/08 – 4900 Navy Rd – Oak Park
3/10/08 – 700 S Goodlett – Audubon Park
3/12/08 – 2000 Poplar Ave – Overton Park
3/12/08 – 800 Western Park – Westwood Park
3/23/08 – 1900 Farrington – Kansas/Riverside Park
3/27/08 – Sam Cooper @ Highland – Chickasaw CC
6/29/08 – 700 Prescott – Davis Park
7/4/08 – 1300 Hartfor Pl North – Cherokee Park
7/9/08 – 3400 Winpark Lane – Congressional Medal of Honor Park
7/12/08 – 3600 Lakehurst – Pierotti Park
7/18/08 – Norton at Jensen – Walker/Roosevelt Park
7/22/08 – 4600 Gilbert – Whitehaven Lane Park
8/29/08 – 3900 Denver – Georgian Hills Park
8/29/08 – 1500 W Mitchell – T.O. Fuller St. Park
8/29/08 – 300 Steve – O’Brien Park
9/3/08 – 100 N Tucker – Overton Park
9/4/08 – 2400 Summer – Overton Park
9/6/08 – 4800 Cottonwood – McFarland Park

Violent crimes taking place in Memphis within three city blocks of a park:

Robbery: Graham at Alpine, Jackson Park, 4/27
Robbery: 3600 South Galloway, Links at Galloway, 4/27
Aggravated Assault: 900 Floyd, Westside Park, 4/27
Aggravated Assault: 2500 Deveraux, John F Kennedy Park, 4/27
Robbery: 3300 Lamar, Nash Buckingham Park, 4/3
Robbery: 3300 Lamar, Nash Buckingham Park, 4/12
Robbery: Wagner at Beale, Tom Lee Park, 4/19
Aggravated Assault: 1900 Poplar, Overton Park, 4/5
Robbery: Poplar and N Barksdale, Overton Park, 3/29

And all those events transpired in a scant seven months of 2008… and those lists may not be all-inclusive (and probably are not). If you want real-time crime data for Memphis, head on over to the Memphis Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center and fool around with the map there. Unfortunately, the map’s database seems to only access the previous 24 hours’ reports, but, even so, one can clearly see more than a few crimes taking place in very close proximity to parks in Memphis.
Crime happens everywhere on a daily basis, whether it is in a park, or in a shopping center, or in a church. “Gun free zones” are nothing more than a more politically-correct name for “victim disarmament zones”, criminals know this, and history has proven this time and time and time again.
In closing, though, I would like to leave you all with a comment from someone on the other side of the fence, left in the above editorial’s comment stream:

The worst part about carry-permit holders in parks is that they’re no different than pedophiles. These antisocial gunslingers are a menace to society and especially so around young children. That’s because when an HCP gunslinger fires at someone “scary” in a park then it is the youngsters in the background who pay the ultimate price. People with HCPs who carry anywhere near children should be branded as the “social criminals” that they are… and they’re certainly no different than pedophiles.

While I would very much like to believe the above comment was written as a farce, given the author’s previous scribblings, I have very little doubt he meant every word he said. These are the kinds of people who would strip us of our rights… bit disturbing, no?

“I guess we have to wait for someone to shoot someone before legislators change their minds,” said Danny Sumrall, chief manager of the Half Shell restaurant on Poplar.

As previously mentioned, people are already being shot (and murdered) in restaurants… that is why legislators are proposing this bill – to allow law-abiding handgun carry permit holders, like me, the chance to better equip ourselves in order to hopefully adequately defend ourselves. Is that really so much to ask?

“I just don’t see how allowing people to bring weapons into my building is a good idea,” he said.

I hate to break it to you, Danny, but unless you have a metal detector and an x-ray machine at the entrance to your restaurant, you are already passively “allowing” people to bring firearms into your restaurant. Criminals are going to carry firearms wherever they want, because they are criminals, and criminals break the law. Why should I have my ability to defend myself and my family curtailed simply because we want to grab a bite to eat?

But Mike Coleman, owner of Marlowe’s, a restaurant in Whitehaven a mile south of Graceland on Elvis Presley Boulevard, said he supports the gun bill sponsored by Rep. Curry Todd, R-Collierville.

“I carry a gun with me everywhere I go. My wife does too,” he said. “I want to protect myself and my family.

“The bad guys around here are going to carry guns regardless of what the law says.”

*BING**BING**BING**BING**BING*
Give the man a cookie.

Sumrall said he, along with many other restaurateurs, will post signs, but he still expects violence.

“If it ever did pass — which is really silly if it ever did — we wouldn’t allow guns,” said Dan Reed, a manager at Blues City Café on Beale.

Go right ahead and post your property as being off-limits to firearms… so long as they are posted appropriately and in accordance with Tennessee State Code, I will go out of my way, literally, to obey them, by not patronizing your restaurant. Just as I support my right to self defense, I support all property-owners’ rights to determine what can and cannot transpire on their property, and I also support the right to vote with one’s dollar. Suffice to say that I will start keeping track of establishments that properly post their premises (I do not care about and do not abide by the non-binding “no guns allowed” signs), and I will put up a periodic post here, on this webpage, letting everyone know which restaurants have barred firearms from their premises.
After all, if someone is going to post a publicly visible sign on their business that caters to the public, they should not mind if I publicize it, right?
*shrugs* Really nothing new here… At least the article’s writing was not too bigoted or biased (which is rather unusual for the Commercial Appeal), and both sides of the debate were presented (though with one side having the preponderance of quotes). It will, indeed, be interesting to see how many restaurants post their premises as off limits to firearms, and especially how many of them do it properly. Given how irrational anti-rights hoplophobes seem to be, I would be very surprised if many could manage to follow the letter of the law…

But with or without the governor’s approval, the matter will soon be in the hands of restaurant owners, who must decide whether or not to follow a prudent course and post signs prohibiting firearms on the premises.

So… wait a second… allowing restaurant managers and owners to decide whether or not they want to allow law-abiding individuals to carry firearms into their restaurants is a bad thing? Excuse me? Letting people exercise control over their private property is an unfortunate side-effect of the situation? How totalitarianistic can you get?! I guess the government might as well start telling Chris Peck where he can and cannot eat, considering how he wants everyone else’s lives and business strictly controlled by the folks in Nashville…
For that matter, I am willing to wager that the vast majority of restaurants in Tennessee have already had to wrestle with that apparently oh-so-important question – after all, fast food joints almost undoubtedly outnumber “honest” restaurants in just about any area. And yet, somehow, those managers decided whether or not they wanted to post their restaurants as off-limits, and they just kept on ticking… Oh, and for reference, I have never seen a restaurant legally posted as off-limits to firearms, whether it served alcohol or not. Sure, there might be the occasional “no weapons allowed” sign, or other such nonsense, but as we all know, such signs/postings are not legally binding here in Tennessee (see Tennessee State Code 39-17-1359). Call it a hunch, but based on how fast food establishments have handled the situation, I strongly doubt that very many restaurants will post their premises as off-limits to firearms, and I seriously doubt that very many of them will do it appropriately or in a manner that is legally binding.
It does not terribly surprise me that the editorial staff of the Commercial Appeal considers such bans to be the “prudent” path, though… their bigotry, bias, and discrimination against those who would dare stand up for themselves, defend themselves and their families, and do so in a law-abiding manner is well-established and quite comprehensive… and is even exposed yet again farther along in the editorial:

Justification seems to be based on a naive perception — perhaps picked up from watching too many old movies — that gun battles are neat, orderly events in which criminals are taken out by sharpshooters who get off clean shots without hitting bystanders. In the movies, guns rarely fire by accident. The good guy hardly ever gets the shakes.

…

Will Chili’s customers who don’t buy Hollywood depictions of gunplay feel safer? It seems unlikely. Neither will parks be safer places if the ban on gun possession in parks goes away, too.

Sen. Mae Beavers, R-Mt. Juliet, may have been unintentionally prophetic during the debate on that issue.

“No longer will a criminal or murderer know that their potential prey will be unarmed,” she declared. Perhaps because unarmed people will stop going to parks?

First, guns do rarely fire by accident, especially modern guns. With older equipment, if you were to drop it, it might go off, but newer firearms are specifically engineered against that possibility.
However firearms are negligently discharged from time to time. Use the right words, and your sarcastic argument might not make you look like an idiot.
Second, it should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the Commercial Appeal’s blatant anti-firearms stance that they cannot provide any examples to support their “old movies” strawman, or even the possibility of hitting bystanders. Yes, I will certainly grant that bystanders are occasionally hit by individuals defending themselves – for example, the incident a few days ago wherein a college student shot and killed a wannabe rapist/murderer, but also wounded one of his friends in the process. The girl who was wounded will recover, so you tell me which is better: being shot, but recovering, or being raped and dead?
Third, as for the shakes… yeah, because obviously you have never gotten the shakes when a semi rig tried to merge into your lane… and you… at 80 miles an hour on the highway. Only then, you are behind a multi-ton object capable of killing hundreds of people if you misuse it, as opposed to my one-pound pistol with a maximum of eight rounds. People “get the shakes”, deal with them, and keep going – oddly enough, we have been doing it for millenia… at least, those who have passed on their genetic material have been doing it for millenia.
Finally, regarding the topic of “safety”, let me put this as simply as possible: parks are not safe right now, that is why people like me want to be able to effectively defend ourselves in them. Why is this so hard to understand? Why are some people so dead-set against other people deciding that they will not be victims? Why is wanting to defend yourself and your family somehow the wrong thing to do? Why should I be forced to be defenseless, an easy target for those who would do me harm, just because some people cannot get over their childish projection psychopathies? And, yes, criminals do exist, whether hoplophobes can swallow their denial long enough to admit it or not.
If folks decide to stop going to parks once handgun carry permit holders are allowed to carry their firearms into those parks… well, those folks are morons. Handgun carry permit holders have a “failure rate” of less than one percent, meaning that less than one percent of all permit holders have their permits revoked due to criminal activity, and not all of those criminal activities are executed with the assistance of a firearm – some are nothing more than DUIs (I am not saying that is a small offense, but rather that it is not limited to just handgun carry permit holders). On the other hand, criminals have a failure rate of 100%, and, guess what? Criminals are already carrying firearms into parks. If folks are going to parks now, and mingling with the criminals who are already carrying firearms, and those same folks stop going to parks just because law-abiding, permitted, background-checked individuals are suddenly allowed to carry firearms into parks as well, then I am (not really) sorry – those folks are complete and utter idiots. Full stop.
Good grief… as usual, the Commercial Appeal is a prime example of idiots leading idiots, with a healthy dosage of bigotry and discrimination thrown on top for good measure. One would think that the folks in charge there would realize that they fell into the “methinks he dost protest too much” trap about two months ago… At this point, their anti-gun, anti-rights, anti-gun-owners, anti-Second-Amendment, and anti-self-defense cred has been well and truly established. Further exposition on these topics only serves to get more and more people engaged in the fight against people like them, and considering the momentum in the Tennessee Legislature, I would think that was the last thing they would have ever wanted.
As a final thought, if you want to see some examples of the mentality of those who would strip us of our naturally-granted, Constitutionally-protected rights, I challenge you to scroll through the comments of the above-linked editorial, and specifically look for the writings of a certain “CarterHaugh”. I will not repost his deranged, unstable, and unhinged ravings here, but suffice to say that he makes the editorial staff of the Commercial Appeal look sane, reasonable, and rational in comparison. Consider yourselves warned.

Tennesseans with complete confidence in state government, with no interest in what goes on behind closed doors in Nashville — have we got some legislation for you.

Up for passage on the floor of the House of Representatives today is the House version of Sen. Mark Norris’ bill denying the public access to information in the state’s registry of handgun permit holders.

What a cute way to phrase the argument… What about Tennesseeans who are concerned about irresponsible journalists violating their privacy? What about Tennesseeans who are concerned about criminals misusing this information to decide who to attack, assault, rob, mug, or otherwise injure? What about Tennesseeans who think that it is no one’s business except their own whether or not they decide to take measures to adequately defend themselves or their families?
The editorial staff of the Commercial Appeal must be slipping – normally their bigotry and bias does not come out until at least a few paragraphs into their editorials.
By the same “logic” (and I am using that word loosely) put forward by this editorial, we Tennesseeans should be demanding the tax records of everyone in the state. No, the state does not have an income tax, but it does tax dividends and interest from bank accounts/investments, and Lord knows we should be able to look up and check the returns of each and every one of our fellow Tennessee residents. After all, some of them could be lying!

The idea has been around for awhile, but it gathered considerable momentum as the result of a firestorm of controversy that erupted after this newspaper reported on fatal shootings carried out by handgun carry permit holders earlier this year in Memphis.

Again with the lying and misdirection! No, the “firestorm of controversy” erupted when your newspaper published the full names, full dates of birth, and full addresses of every single handgun carry permit holder in the state of Tennessee. If you had simply reported the news, and, in the process, reported that the individual responsible for the fatal shootings was a handgun carry permit holder, I would bet very good money that very few people, if any, would have cared. But no. You had to take it the one step further, and publish a searchable database of all 220,000+ law-abiding handgun carry permit holders in the state.
That is what provided so much momentum to HB0959. Take ownership of your actions, Chris – you are resopnsible for the progress this bill has made.

The publication of a database bearing the names of permit holders on the newspaper’s Web site also was widely criticized, even after addresses of permit holders were removed.

Maybe, just maybe, that outrage could be due to the fact that the information the database still provides (full name and zip code) is all one needs to find handgun carry permit holders’ addresses, ages, family information, phone numbers, property values, property taxes, and a whole host of other information (after all, I used only the full names and zip codes of the staff of the Commercial Appeal to discovery all manner of public information concerning them…). Maybe, just maybe, that outrage is due to the fact that no one needs to know who has a handgun carry permit and who does not. Maybe, just maybe, that outrage is due to the fact that citizens value their privacy and safety, and the database in question violated both.
Maybe… just maybe.

Their bill is one of several measures advancing in the legislature that would expand the rights of gun owners, who could soon be allowed to pack heat in parks and restaurants that serve alcohol and carry loaded rifles and shotguns in their vehicles — measures that are strongly opposed by law enforcement authorities.

Which ones? How many? Names? Positions? Links to support that statement? Evidence? Corroboration? Citations? You just have to love the baseless and unsupported claims repeatedly made in these editorials…

Publishing information about the list would be a Class A misdemeanor punishable by fines of up to $2,500.

Not any more – if you care to look at the records for HB0959, you will see that Amendment 1 was adopted yesterday. This amendment removes the misdemeanor clause of the bill, and thus any basis you might have for challenging the Constitutionality of the bill. Sorry, Chris, but you really have no leg to stand on.

The public would not only be denied access to the list itself but to information about permits yanked by the state because of criminal activity by permit holders.

Not exactly – almsot all of the kinds of “criminal activities” that would result in a permit being yanked would also be public record, and covered by yet another database that the Commercial Appeal maintains. But it is funny how leaving that little bit of information out makes your argument seem so much stronger, eh? Journalistic “integrity”, at its best.

It would be virtually impossible to conduct the kind of investigation that The Commercial Appeal conducted earlier this year, which revealed that the state has issued handgun carry permits to more than 70 Shelby County residents with arrest histories, some of whom have been charged with robbery, assault, domestic violence and other serious offenses.

Well, Chris, if all you had done was that investigation, none of this would have transpired. But, no, you had to abuse your power, misuse information available to you, and invade the privacy of over 220,000 law-abiding citizens.
Speaking of, how does the state government not doing its job properly give you, or anyone else, the right to violate the privacy of law-abiding citizens? If your problem is with the state, then bloody well take it up with the state, and leave me, my family, and all of the rest of the handgun carry permit holders in Tennessee alone. Really now… how hard would that have been?

Instead, Reps. Hardaway, Todd and other sponsors of this legislation apparently want you to believe, the government can be trusted to issue handgun permits only to honest, stable, sober and responsible individuals.

[insert three examples of criminals with handgun carry permits]

And yet, somehow, both the state and federal governments are allowed to maintain tax records without the general public having an easily-searchable database available to them from any computer terminal in the world. Or, more topically, the state of Tennessee keeps its driver’s license information confidential, and out of the public view. I wonder how that happens… oh, wait, they have these trippy things called “audits”!
Once again, Chris, if your problem is with the state government, then take it up with the gorramed state government. Have them set up a review board. Lobby for a team of auditors to ensure that the Tennessee Department of Safety is doing its job – I would be onboard with you on that one, considering I am all about our government actually bothering to execute its duties efficiently and effectively.
But when it comes to selectively targetting a cross-section of law-abiding citizens for persecution, invasion of privacy, and bigotry, all because of a governmental failure rate of less than one percent? Yeah, you can bloody well pack sand, mate.
Should HB0959 make it to becoming law, a significant portion of the credit rests squarely on your shoulders, Chris. Congratulations!
Not to be out-done by his editor, though, Richard Locker had to pipe up with his own version of “journalism”. His first attempt, covering HB0962, was not that bad, and had one very important (if erroneous) take-away:

The bill allows restaurants to post signs banning guns in their businesses.

This bill allows no such thing – in fact, Tennessee State Code 39-17-1359 allows any private location to post that firearms are not permitted… which is why this entire debate is pretty much a non-starter. If a place does not want to allow handgun carry permit holders (since they are the only ones who would actually obey the signs in question) to carry their firearms onto the premises, all they have to do is post those premises appropriately. However, having the government ban locations simply because some idiot thinks that alcohol and firearms cannot exist within 20 feet of each other without one or the other exploding? Yeah, that is just stupid.
Unfortunately, Richard Locker’s other piece covering HB0959 was significantly less “journalism” and more “editorial”…

The state House of Representatives took less than two minutes Monday to pass a bill closing handgun-carry permit records to the public.

The House’s 83-12 vote, with no debate, came two days after a gun-carry licensee, Thomas Pate, 26, of Bartlett, was charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of his wife, Micah, also 26.

Micah Pate’s gun slaying was the fourth in Shelby County in three months in which the accused killers had state-issued carry permits.

And how, exactly, is Micah’s unfortunate murder in any way related to this bill? How would keeping the handgun carry permit records public have prevented her death? How would it have mattered if Thomas had no criminal record up to his senseless murder of his wife? What reason is there to drag this crime, criminal, and victim into this discussion, except to try and paint all handgun carry permit holders with the same blood-soaked brush?
The Commercial Appeal has never shown itself to be above dancing in the blood of victims, but it seems as though every time they do it, they try and reach for even deeper depths of depravity. Guess I will just never understand, not being an “authorized journalist” and whatnot.
The end summation? Another day, another two rights restored or protected, and another hoplophobic, bigoted newspaper struggling for relevancy. Seems to be the trend, these days…