More Tennessee cities opt out of guns in parks

[BlueJessamine]

Source: The Tennessean

The list of cities and counties opting out of Tennessee's new law that allows people with gun permits to take their weapons into public parks keeps getting longer.

While some city and county governments — including Brentwood, Murfreesboro, Chattanooga, and Williamson and Shelby counties — have rushed to exempt their parks, a Nashville lawyer who has worked more than a decade for the new law said he is considering a court challenge.

John Harris, executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, said the opt-out provision for local governments is a "travesty" and might be challenged in court.

"Did the legislature have the authority to pass the buck?" Harris said. "We are researching it."

Harris said the exemption option also fails to provide any way for gun-permit holders to secure their weapons in vehicles when they arrive at a park and does not address having a gun in a vehicle when traveling on a park road that is used as access to a neighboring residential area.


Read more: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090720/NEWS0203/907200333/1001/NEWS/More+Tennessee+cities+opt+out+of+guns+in+parks

[marmar]

1. Good for them......

..... cities don't need the NRA to write laws for them.

[paulsby]

2. thankfully, i live in a state

(WA) where cities do not have the authority to restrict people's constitutional rights. seattle made a big fuss about trying to do this by "executive order" (how bushian) in their parks but it never went anywhere.

[slackmaster]

3. I'm sure all the armed robbers and rapists will cheerfully comply with the law

:rofl:

[gratuitous]

5. On the other hand

If there's a lack of evidence or witnesses for a more serious crime, that crime might be the hook needed to take the perpetrator off the street. Since this isn't a congressional law, but a local one, it seems like no Second Amendment violation exists and that this is more of a Tenth Amendment asssertion of a State's rights.

[slackmaster]

6. I see it as a pointless "feel good" measure that will do nothing good for public safety

About as useful as teats on a boar hog.

[gratuitous]

12. Perhaps

But we really need to get serious about observing the Second Amendment some time. We're about four centuries ahead on that keeping and bearing arms part of the Amendment and we haven't moved one iota since the 18th Century on either the "well-regulated" or "militia" parts of the Amendment.

[beevul]

33. About the "well-regulated" or "militia" parts of the Amendment...

A reminder of what the Bill Of Rights is:

A list of restrictions on the government, with the intent of preventing government from misconstruing or abusing of its powers:


THE Conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution

http://billofrights.org /


Some examples:

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Self explanitory.




Amendment II

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

Shall not be infringed by whom?

Government, of course.




Amendment III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Soldier, being an agent of the government and all...





Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated , and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Shall not be violated by whom?

Government, of course.





Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.


Held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime by whom? Be twice put in jeopardy by whom? Compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself by whom? Be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law by whom? nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation by whom?

Government, of course.


Now, the second amendment contains a declaratory clause - "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State", and a restrictive clause - "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed".



The "militia" reading and the "collective rights" reading of the second amendment are dead.

Old news.

[cabluedem]

34. If they dont they go to jail with everyone else. .Problem solved. nt

[Pavulon]

35. After taking your shit or raping you, maybe adding holes

you weren't born with. Then only after they fuck over enough people do they go. The police are reactive.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Odin2005]

7. +1

The anti-gun nuts forget about self defense.

[AlbertCat]

11. Paranoid much?

Where do you people live????

Some post Apocalyptic metropolis? Is this "Escape from NY"?

I know. Why don't you wear a full suit of armor when you go out? You should be relatively safe then. Too old fashion? Perhaps the bullet proof armor they didn't send the soldiers in Iraq is available. Quite fetching with a hat!

Better yet, just stay indoors with your twitchy trigger finger.

[JonQ]

16. Where do you live?

Where crimes never occur?

[Odin2005]

18. More like I have a physically disabled friend who was raped 3 months ago

Just FYI. :eyes:

[NashVegas]

20. Was She In a Park?

I'm sorry for your friend, but if she wasn't in a park, Tennessee or otherwise, I'm not sure how it applies as an argument favoring concealed weapons in our parks.

[Odin2005]

21. No, I was making a more general point about a right to use guns for self-defense

guns are the great equalizer, negating the disparity of physical strength between men and women.

[KamaAina]

27. Wouldn't Mace or pepper spray serve as an equalizer as well?

Without the lethal side effects?

[MadMaddie]

28. We just had two women attacked in their home in Seattle

It's been pretty warm here and hardly anyone has air-conditioning. They left a window cracked.....The guy slipped in and stabbed them both repeatedly....one woman died and the other is in critical condition.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009501061_southparkstabbing20.html

I live on the East Side of Seattle and I am seriously considering a handgun. I have been around weapons and know how to use them. I just haven't felt that we needed one in the house.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Redneck Socialist]

8. Weird

Gun on the public street outside the park = ok, gun in the park = not ok.

I don't get it.

[ensho]

9. thankfully there are some sane people in Tenn.

nt

[michreject]

13. To be clear

This is City owned parks only. Not State parks. It's legal to carry a gun in a state park. Even if the state park is within a city.

[Bankhead_ATL]

14. Tennessee ...WOW!!!!!!!!!!! GOod for them

[Ozymanithrax]

15. Simple answer...

Don't take guns into parks.

[JonQ]

17. Simple answer:

don't ban law-abiding citizens from carrying guns in places where non-law-abiding citizens are carrying guns.

[Flaneur]

19. Somehow I don't feel safer assuming everyone is packing heat.

But that's just me.

[JonQ]

22. Not everyone would be, most in fact would not

But if guns are banned then you can know for certain that anyone carrying one in a park is a criminal. Does it make you feel safer to know you'd only be surrounded by armed criminals, with no law abiding citizens mixed in?

And besides, the numbers don't back the hysteria. Anti-CHL folks swore we'd have blood running in the streets if people were allowed guns, that never manifested. So it would be baseless to assume this would lead to more shootings in public parks.

[NashVegas]

23. I'm a Single Female Park User In Tennessee. Concealed Carry Backers Are the Larger Threat

I use several different parks in Nashville for hiking - and in what are considered isolated areas. We have plenty of crimes reported in town, but none in the parks. A few, VERY few, on side-streets around one or two, over a 5-month period (you can check the Tennessean's crime maps, yourself).

Tennessee Parks users didn't ask for this law. If anything, regular park users are the ones who are pissed off beyond belief. Williamson Country is one of the Reddist, RW-est counties in the US, and even they are PISSED OFF.

This law was pushed on us by two forces:

1. Toucan Sam lobby.

2. Rural state legislators who feared representatives of Tennessee's larger cities would run over the concerns of rural areas have formed a coalition. Although they said they banded together out of fear of being walked on, instead, their first instances of muscle-flexing have come at the expense of the larger cities.

Another one of the new gun laws - bars/restaurant concealed carry - puts the burden of keeping guns out of bars on bar owners. If they want to opt out, they can, but if they do so, they are liable for any shootings that happen in their place of business. So owners are forced to take out insurance, forced to hire some sort of security or provide metal detectors. You would not fucking believe how pissed off people are.


Back to the parks. Generally speaking, criminal personalities simply have much, MUCH easier pickings elsewhere than where the state's most active-lifestyle residents gather, and people who don't use our parks currently for fear of being attacked aren't the kind of people we want to see on the trails. Equally distressing is the idea of being stalked on the trail by some redneck who wants to live out a fantasy of rescuing a damsel in distress. In the feedback emails to our local newspaper, the only person who could come up with a logical reason why guns might be necessary in a park is so his drug-dealer friend wouldn't feel threatened if he decided to cross town and sell in the park near the "hood."

That park, by the way, according to crime maps is as incident free as those in the tony part of town.

[Redneck Socialist]

25. Toucan Sam lobby?

I didn't know Fruit Loops were so popular in Tennessee.

[NashVegas]

26. LOL.

I'm tired. But it still works. Fruit Loops, indeed.

[Doctor_J]

31. remember what product Sam sold, and I think you will get it

:-)

[proteus_lives]

24. local government exceeding their authority.

If I want to carry in a park, I will.

[Aristus]

29. Harris seems to have forgotten that we live in a democracy. And the towns opting out of

this idiotic law are basically saying: "We don't fucking want it here, asshole!"

But leave it to a gun nut to overlook the glaringly obvious... :eyes:

[Blandocyte]

30. Common sense prevailing

If you want to carry your damn gun around, go to a range. I don't want to be around people with guns while I'm hiking or having a picnic. Jesus H.! If permit holders think parks are so dangerous that they need to be armed, don't go to the effin' park! Meanwhile, brave and unarmed people like me will be enjoying ourselves in all those places where the permit holders are afraid to be unarmed.

[Doctor_J]

32. lawyers for the gun culture will soon sue these cities out of existence

The wingers want "local governance", unless of course the locals' idea of what they need is different.