Guns in stadiums, good idea or bad?

[Bricker]

@k9bfriender

I say the same thing to the fire marshal when he comes around. He’s just a chicken little, telling me that overloading my outlets, having extension cords strung across the room, blocking doors, and storing flammable liquids next to my water heater is “against fire code.”

Over decades, I have seen all of these fire code violations and more, and never seen a fire, and yet, even still the fire marshal doesn’t have the “honor” to admit that he is wrong.

This is utterly misplaced as an argument.

The fire marshal should be aware that he can easily point to changes in fire codes and corresponding reductions in both residential and commercial fires. So he (or she) is not wrong: the historical changes in fire codes have contributed measurably to fire prevention.

But pkbites’s example was correct. When changes to concealed carry laws have been debated, the opposition to broadening concealed carry rights has offered up predictions of mayhem that have not come to pass.

In this 2010 thread, the OP said:

@Captain_Amazing

Virginia has a concealed carry law. One of the provisions of the law says that you’re not allowed to carry a concealed weapon in bars or restaurants where alcohol is served.

Just the other day, the Virginia General Assembly just passed a bill, that the governor is expected to sign, that will change the law. Under the new law, you’ll be allowed to carry your concealed weapon into the bar or restaurant, as long as you don’t drink while you’re in there. The bill passed the legislature the past two years, but the governor vetoed it each time. Now that we have Bob McDonnell as governor, though, he’s promised to sign it.

It seems to me that this is a bad idea. It seems to me that it’s a bad idea to have armed people in such close proximity to alcohol. I know the law says that people carrying aren’t allowed to drink, but what are the chances that that’s going to be obeyed? It’s not really very enforceable, and it seems like it can also cause trouble for bartenders. If some drunk guy shoots the bar up, I can see lawsuits being filed against the bar and bartender saying, “It’s your fault because you served booze to the armed guy.”

Now, I know gun control debates on this board tend to turn into “Guns are evil” vs. “Guns are great”, but I’d like that not to happen here, if that’s possible. Can we talk about the merits or lack thereof of this particular bill?

A debate ensued, which all are welcome to read, but involved those opposed offering dire predictions about wild-west style drunken rednecks shooting at each other under the conditions the relaxed laws would offer.

A year and a half later, I revived the thread to post an article from the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Virginia’s bars and restaurants did not turn into shooting galleries as some had feared during the first year of a new state law that allows patrons with permits to carry concealed guns into alcohol-serving businesses, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis found.

The number of major crimes involving firearms at bars and restaurants statewide declined 5.2 percent from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, compared with the fiscal year before the law went into effect, according to crime data compiled by Virginia State Police at the newspaper’s request.

And overall, the crimes that occurred during the law’s first year were relatively minor, and few of the incidents appeared to involve gun owners with concealed-carry permits, the analysis found.

The response from the OP?

@Captain_Amazing

What is there to comment on? The statistics show what the statistics show, and I’m glad there hasn’t been an increase in gun crimes in Virginia restaurants and bars over the past year. I don’t see that that changes the fact that guns are dangerous and that people, when they carry guns, are dangerous.

Others in the thread speculated the police and newspaper were falsifying data to hide the violence that must have occurred, or refused to acknowledge the data. One person admitted error, which was very honest considering he had not posted prior to the year’s passage:

@Measure_for_Measure

Aw, what the heck. I was wrong.
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Years ago, I thought the CCW experiment would end badly. I was wrong. So I didn’t participate in this thread: I withheld public judgment because I knew that I had been wrong once and the law seemed to apply more to CCW types than hopped up drunken rednecks with impulse control issues. I privately thought that this might end badly… or might not, given the CCW experience. I would not have liked to place a bet on the matter.

Looking forward, I want 4 additional years of data and a real study. I don’t anticipate the general pattern changing… though it could. It just would be nice to nail down the statistical significance and cull out any unanticipated behavioral patterns.

I bumped the thread again in 2014 to say:

@Bricker

It’s been four years since the law passed.

So far, the trend is holding steady.

Of course, you said four additional years, so I guess we need to wait until 2015?

But the chances for an explosion of violence seem… small.

And others in the thread finally came forward to…
… castigate me for remembering the thread and returning to it. “Slow day at work?” and speculations about an alarm set on my phone calendar were offered up.