Hanger’s gun bill misses aim

Striding into the neighborhood watering hole toting a hidden firearm sounds like a dandy idea, provided you're the fellow strapping the firearm, you're figuring on trouble or you're just hankering for a good John Wayne analogy. The idea also is easy on the ears if you're a Republican looking for a healthy helping of conservative support after having been taken out to the political woodshed as a no-good tax-and-spender, which resembles more than slightly the predicament of our own Sen. Emmett Hanger, R-Mount Solon.

He has proposed a bill allowing folks to carry their concealed irons into restaurants and bars, provided they notify an employee of the establishment and refrain from guzzling booze, which would take away much of the concept's intrigue.

Naturally, the anti-gun gang has its hackles up, envisioning the kind of shootouts that makes "The Good, Bad, and The Ugly" such a heap of fun to watch but not so much fun to play out.
"Welcome to the wild, wild West," declared Del. James M. Scott, D-Merrifield, a member of the Militia and Police Committee that approved Hanger's bill 16-5. "We've bested Texas. We've bested Alaska."

Curtis Coleburn, chief operating officer of the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, agrees.  "This is bad public safety policy," said Coleburn, not to be confused with Cogburn. He said police and ABC agents are safer when they are able to see who is armed in a restaurant or club.

Current laws allow firearms in those places, but only if the weapons are carried in the open, in gunbelts, for example, complete with holsters and bullet loops in the fashion of the Duke himself (spurs and 10-gallon hats preferred but not required). Also like the Duke, pistol packers in the commonwealth are free under the law to slam down shots of whiskey until somebody cuts them off, potentially a daring move given the circumstances.

So when Hanger calls his bill "a common-sense measure," he might have a point.

Further, he says, "these individuals can be trusted because they are typically people who obey the law [and] have gone through a process" to obtain a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Gun-rights lobbyists long have been calling for a measure like the one proposed by Hanger. Their opponents are quick to quake in their boots, fearing outbreaks of barroom shoot-'em-ups. Such concerns ignore the fact that gun violence is generally the product of illegal activity undertaken with arms illegally obtained.

Hanger's assertion that concealed carriers are, for the most part, people who support law and order draws reflexive guffaws. Supporting looser gun restrictions to gun opponents is like supporting open season on puppies. But Hanger is backed by the facts. Ridding the streets of thugs who acquire guns illegally then use the weapons in crimes is the best method to curb gun violence. Whether people carry legally obtained guns in the open or tucked under their shirts is moot.

In Hanger's case, Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine packs the real heat, known as veto power. He will likely gun Hanger's bill down in its tracks. In either case, we'll be neither safer nor more at risk.