I went to the gym the other night and found this posted on the front door. These notices are popping up all over Jackson these days, in response to a new Mississippi law which legalizes the carrying of guns in holsters anywhere and everywhere without a permit. Fearful that the new law would encourage patrons to walk onto their establishments armed to the teeth, businesses all over town have been reacting by banning guns on their own private property.
No matter what you think about gun rights, certainly it must strike you as odd that private businesses feel the need to tell people what should be common sense: don't bring guns to gyms, or restaurants, or malls, or hospitals. Even some churches have been posting the signs. Do people really have to be told that there are places where it is inappropriate to carry a gun? Seems so. When the law says it is okay, some people assume there must be nothing wrong with it.
I also wonder, if all businesses in Mississippi are going to ban guns on their premises, doesn't that indicate the true will of the people? The legislature passed this law under intense lobbying pressure from the NRA and ALEC. The lobbyists spoke in the legislative chamber, and now the people are speaking on the streets. Local businesses are simply recognizing the obvious -- if someone walks into a toy store with a pistol, a lot of mothers will gather up their children and head for the door. Armed customers are bad for business. Who'd have thought?
Why is it that businesses, small and large, are forced to make up the sensible rules of society, taking over a job that used to belong to the government? When people are in public places, they want to feel safe. Not many people will go to places where they feel they have to tote a gun along just in case the guy with the .38 hitched to his belt gets a little angry when the clerk tells him she can't exchange the shoes he bought.
If guns are bad for business, doesn't that answer the question of why some gun restrictions make sense?
The second amendment people have it exactly backwards. We don't like in a free society so we can carry guns wherever we go. We live in a free society so we don't have to carry guns wherever we go. The whole point of society is protection. Society, and government, provides a safe place for us to live and work, so we don't have to walk around with semiautomatic pistols at our sides. The problem is, if you reject the premise and insist on carrying a gun, you will find, as this sign attests, that no one wants you in their company. Nor should they.
In Mississippi, no one ever said you couldn't have a gun in your home or car to defend yourself. All the law said was you can't take a lethal weapon to a football game. I don't see the problem. If you are afraid you are going to get shot walking in a mall, don't go.