Every year for the last 13 years, the Virginia Citizen’s Defense League (VCDL) has worked with the Virginia General Assembly to pass legislation fixing Virginia’s ridiculous ban on concealed carry in restaurants that serve alcohol. Alot of the Virginia media completely misunderstand the issue and indulge in all manner of hyperbole and theatrics.

First, some background: In Virginia, there exists no law prohibiting a law-abiding citizen from carrying a gun openly, in public. There are restrictions, including no high-capacity (> 20 rounds) magazines in urban areas, no carry in schools or courthouses or federal buildings, no carry where posted by the private property owner, and a few others, but for all practical purposes, anyone legally able to possess a gun in Virginia can carry it openly in public without any sort of permit or registration. Maybe that scares you and it seems foolish, but it’s true. Thousands of Virginias do so every year, including me.

While open carry is legal and a legitimate way to carry a firearm for self-defense, it does have a few problems. First, many cops over the years have detained or arrested law-abiding citizens for open carrying, using charges like “disturbing the peace” or whatever. Second, even in areas where the police are well-educated as to the law, people still make “man with a gun” 911 calls. So, what if you want to carry a gun for defense, but you don’t want to call attention to yourself, scare people, or attract the police?

In Virginia, you apply to your county courthouse for a concealed handgun permit. As long as you meet the statutory eligibility requirements (older than 21, proof of training, no felony convictions, and a few others) your county is required by law to issue you a permit within 45 days. Once the permit is issued, you can carry a concealed handgun in all the same places you can carry openly, but without the drama.

There is, however, one exception to that rule: under Virginia law, you may not carry a concealed handgun onto the premises of a restaurant licensed to serve alcohol for on-premises consumption. This would include virtually any non-fast-food dining establishment, like TGI Friday’s, Ruby Tuesday’s, Silver Diner, etc. It doesn’t matter whether you drink any alcohol or not; concealed carry is not allowed.

In practice, this forces one of two responses from CHP holders: either leave the weapon in the car, hoping it won’t be stolen and used in a crime, or stop concealing the gun and carry it openly. That’s right; there’s nothing in Virginia law prohibiting openly carrying a gun in a restaurant that serves alcohol; it’s only concealed handguns that are forbidden.

So, maybe you believe that citizens should be disarmed by the force of law whenever they are in the presence of alcohol. I think that’s bullshit, but even if I did agree with you, presumably an openly-carried handgun is at least as likely to turn its owner into a raging gunman as is a concealed handgun, perhaps even more-so if the clearly visible handgun prompts one or more drunken assholes to pick a fight.

Anyway, like it or not, that’s the law in Virginia. VCDL has been working to get this changed, so open and concealed carry are treated equally. For the first time ever, VCDL-endorsed legislation allowing concealed carry in restaurants that serve alcohol has made it through both the Senate and the House of Delegates, and is headed to the governor, whose response is anyone’s guess.

This has Virginia’s liberal media worked up into a froth of colorful rhetoric and hyperbolic hand-waving. “Guns and booze don’t mix”, we’re told. “Guns in bars is a bad idea”, it seems (nevermind there are no “bars” in Virginia; only restaurants that serve food which happen to be licensed to serve alcohol for on-premises consumption). “Why do you need a gun in McDonald’s?”, we’re asked, notwithstanding the fact that McD’s doesn’t serve alcohol and thus one can legally carry concealed there.

A great example of this irrational, poorly-reasoned, profoundly-ignorant rhetoric is an opinion piece by Nick Penning in The Connection newspapers, entitled Grab the Derringer, Honey, We’re Taking the Kids to McDonalds. If you support the right of law-abiding citizens to carry weapons for their own defense, the piece is a painful read filled with misconceptions, distortions, and solipsistic bullshit. If you support government attempts to disarm law-abiding citizens, you probably won’t like the piece either, as it makes a profoundly weak case for restricting gun rights due to the aforementioned flaws.

Here are some choice bits:

Grab the Derringer, Honey, We’re Taking the Kids to McDonalds

Ok, even the title is full of fail. I’m sure some citizens carry a derringer for defense, but most would find it a poor choice. Derringers are typically very small, with small capacities and weak cartridges. I’m sure they’re better than nothing, but not by much.

Notwithstanding the gun ignorance, the debate over this bill has nothing to do with McDonalds. Anyone with a concealed handgun permit can carry concealed in McDonald’s today, just as surely as they can if this bill becomes law.

What could be more “American” than coming home after a long day and deciding to give yourselves a break and the kids a treat? And now the Republican-led House of Delegates in Richmond has made it even more fun, by approving — in a 62-26 vote — your right to pack a revolver in your pocket while the kids eat their fries.

Oh God where to begin. When an author starts to break out the Old West lingo like “pack” and “gun totin’”, you know you’re in for a painful screed. It should be noted that the Democrat-led Senate also passed the bill, and it does not address “rights” or “privileges”, it simply modifies the law to relax restrictions imposed on concealed handgun permit holders. As an aside for others considering penning a gun-hating rant, a “revolver” is a type of handgun, and a “pistol” or “semi-automatic” is another type. The bill does not specify the type of handgun, nor does it specify the mode of carry; just that it is concealed.

What in God’s name is happening to our culture? Or should the question be, what are gun-obsessed politicians doing to our culture?

Expanding the rights of one of the most law-abiding groups in Virginia, concealed handgun permit holders, is somehow detrimental to our culture? Does one have to be “gun-obsessed” to think this is a good idea?

The bill in question SB 476, had been drafted to prohibit the carrying of concealed firearms into Virginia restaurants. Take a look at how a sensible prohibition against guns in eating establishments, especially those which serve alcohol, was twisted into a permit to carry a gun in such places. This is the wording of the bill, as changed by an amendment added before it passed (the original words are crossed out; the added ones are in italics):

If SB 476 was drafted to prohibit carrying concealed handguns in restaurants that serve alcohol, it was a pointless bill to draft, as that’s already prohibited under Virginia law.

No person shall carry who carries a concealed handgun onto the premises of any restaurant or club … which [has] a license to sell and serve alcoholic beverages for on-premises consumption … may consume an alcoholic beverage while on the premises.

Clever, isn’t it? Just amend a well-intentioned “No person shall carry a concealed handgun” into a bar or restaurant, and bastardize it into its polar opposite by changing the language. It went from “no person ‘shall’ carry” a gun, to “no person ‘who’ carries” a gun; and then adding “may consume an alcoholic beverage” at the end.

He makes it sound as though this was some sort of dirty little trick. In point of fact, amendments to laws that materially change the laws are a common practice in legislative bodies, and have been used by anti-gun politicians to sink pro-gun legislation more times than I care to count. It’s, um, representative democracy, not some sort of nefarious plot.

Based on this bill’s provisions, apparently it’s already Ok for you to carry your handgun and holster outside your jacket wherever you go in the Commonwealth. The cause célèbre of gunsters now is hiding them, when you’re in public.

Um, yeah. Open carry has been legal in VA for a long time now. And just what the hell is a “gunster” and why do I get the sense it’s a pejorative term? Anyway, “hiding” them isn’t a new cause celebre; that was back in 1994 when Virginia law was changed to establish clear and simply rules for the issuance of concealed handgun permits to anyone not prohibited by law. The “cause celebre” now is to strike the ridiculous law that requires those otherwise carrying concealed to open up in a restaurant. Surely, Nick would rather he and his children eat their meals in peace rather than experience the trauma of dining in the presence of an openly armed citizen!

Thirty people were meticulously slaughtered by Virginia handguns at Virginia Tech less than a year ago. Have we learned nothing about the insanity of widespread, no limits possession of handguns in our state and country?

Except the VA tech massacre didn’t happen at a restaurant that served alcohol, wasn’t perpetrated by a citizen with a concealed handgun permit, and quite possibly could have ended differently if VA Tech didn’t forcibly disarm its students and subsequently fail to protect them from murderous criminals.

It’s as though I’m writing a screed opposing a tax increase and invoke Mao’s murderous Cultural Revolution as proof increased government spending is bad.

For most of us, this kind of lawmaking is under our radar. Bills fly through our Assembly and, were it not for the press, we’d rarely hear about any of them. Most of the time an entity with the strength of the NRA operates with the wind at its back, sailing its packages of public poison into laws, despite the good efforts of our local Arlington delegates and senators.

Oh, how I wish that were true. Why, then, is this the thirteenth attempt to fix this law? Why does Virginia still have a stupid one-handgun-a-month law? Why does Virginia require proof of citizenship to buy “assault weapons”? Why does Virginia allow its public universities to disarm their adult students by administrative fiat?

Until now things seemed to be changing, in our Virginia and in the nation. We evicted a Republican racist from one of our seats in the U.S. Senate, installing Jim Webb.

Reasonable people can argue the extent to which George Allen was a racist; we can all agree he ran an astonishingly shitty Senate re-election campaign. What this has to do with the subject of the column one can only guess.

However, since we’re on the subject of Jim Webb, it’s worth noting he has a Virginia concealed handgun permit, and exercises his divine right as a one of 534 more-equal citizens permitted to carry a handgun in the Capitol building. How long until Senator Web is driven mad by the presence of a firearm and guns down the Republican leadership in a fit of rage?

Virginia appeared to be joining the nation in ending the politics of violence and hate. Instead, the Assembly snapped a bit of hope from our lives and gave-in to the purveyors of handguns, the only purpose of which is to kill human beings. While rifles are used for hunting and can’t be concealed, easily purchased handguns fit nicely in any pocket and are used all over this gun-infested land to kill spouses, girlfriends, neighbors, and street crime victims. There’s a reason they’re termed “Saturday Night Specials,” since they can be found at virtually every crime scene in every city and village across the country.

It literally pained me to read this paragraph. How one can fit so much ignorance and distortion in so few words is beyond me.

• Allowing law-abiding, permit-holding Virginians to carry defensive weapons in a restaurant serving alcohol, the same weapons they carry everywhere else without hurting anyone, is somehow an aim of the politics of violence and hate?
• This bill was not pushed by the “purveyors of handguns”, if that means dealers and gun manufacturers. It was pushed by groups representing the law-abiding gun owners who demand the government recognize their right to defend themselves and their families against imminent threats of serious bodily harm or death.
• While handguns have a purpose other than the killing of human beings, I will grant Nick this: one would be foolish to carry a handgun for defense if that handgun was not capable of killing a human being. However, that does not mean all who carry handguns are seeking to take human life; if that were true, I hope he would join me in demanding our police officers be disarmed immediately.
• If Nick thinks a rifle can’t be concealed, I’d love for him to try to find my FAL under a heavy coat once I fold the stock
• I’m not sure what “easily purchased” means; if it means “purchased from a licensed gun dealer after passing a federal background check”, then I’ll grant him that. Handguns are certainly no easier to buy than long guns, and in some ways harder.
• If he thinks handguns fit nicely into any pocket, I have a few handguns I’d like him to stuff in his pocket as an experiment. Most lawfully armed citizens carry in a holster, which is both safer and easier to access
• If “gun infested” means having significant private gun ownership, then I’ll give him that. But he focuses on the use of guns to commit murder as though the gun is what makes that possible, but that’s demonstrably untrue. How many of those girlfriends, spouses, neighbors, and street crime victims (that is, the one’s that weren’t already felons and gang members and thus much more likely to be killed by gunfire) would be alive today if they’d armed themselves and prepared to fight back against their attackers? In Nick’s Utopia where everyone is disarmed, there is nothing between the 6”2’ 250lb rapist and his 110lb victim but a law prohibiting rape.
• The term “Saturday Night Specials” has been used to ban a certain class of handguns, usually cheap, small-caliber guns like the Lorcin. As these have been regulated out of existence, the law-abiding poor are less able to afford firearms, while the gang-bangers that prey upon them seem to manage to spring for Glocks and Sigs. Nick seems to suggest that handgun == “Saturday Night Special”, which is absurdly ignorant, even for a gun-hating opinion columnist

And now Virginia, if the governor should fail to use his veto, could see a metastasizing of gun violence in bars and eateries all over the state, thanks to this insane legislation.

So, let me get this straight. Law-abiding gun owners with concealed carry permits can and do carry concealed handguns all over the state, as they have for 14 years. Those same gun owners can and do openly carry those same handguns in restaurants that serve alcohol (NIT: legally speaking there are no bars in Virginia), as they have for at least that long. The proportion of concealed handgun permit holders who have been convicted of a violent crime is lower than the number of police officers locked up for violent felonies. And yet should Governor Kaine choose to allow those very same permit holders to carry those very same guns concealed in restaurants that serve alcohol (provided they do not consume alcohol while carrying), gun violence in Virginia will metastasize out of control?

Here’s the thinking, apparently:

Concealed carry everywhere but restaurants that serve alcohol: no bloodbath
Open carry everywhere including restaurants that serve alcohol: no bloodbath
Concealed carry in restaurants that serve alcohol: bloodbath

Even if you oppose civilian gun ownership, if you’re the slightest bit intellectually honest you have to admit this doesn’t pass the smell test.

“Sure, you can hide your gun under your shirt or in your bag; but we made certain everything will be safe in the restaurants,” say those who voted for SB 476, ‘because you can’t drink while you’re packing a gun.’

So, when you’re arrested for killing someone in a late night shootout, heaven help you if you took a drink, because that’s illegal.

Nick has unwittingly parodied himself here. Usually when a gun-banner is proposing some new disarmament scheme, it’s us gun-rights advocates that point out murder/kidnapping/assault are already crimes, so it’s wishful thinking to believe criminals will obey gun-ban laws when they don’t obey violence-ban laws. Now, Nick is turning it around, but in an absurdly implausible way.

As a statistical matter, concealed handgun permit holders are extremely unlikely to commit violent crimes, especially with their carry guns. It’s not the prohibition on drinking that makes this the case (though I don’t oppose prohibitions against alcohol consumption whilst armed), but the nature of permit holders. If one has no respect for the law, or no self-control, one will carry a concealed handgun without a permit. After all, it’s just a misdemeanor, and if it’s concealed you won’t get caught. A permit holder has jumped through legal hoops, spent money, and inconvenience him/herself in order to respect the law. This is, generally speaking, not someone who will fly into a blind rage and gun down the wait staff in a late-night shootout.

If, by some statistical anomaly, a drunken CHP holder were to commit a murder, a Class 1 misdemeanor for drinking while armed would be irrelevant; felony murder charges are what would ruin his day.

Maybe you and I can help this national change process by stopping the NRA here; by showing we reject the insanity of all guns, all the time; because they can only lead to more dead bodies too much of the time.

The problem with this argument, apart from the slanderous smear against gun owners as represented by the NRA, is that it’s been made against virtually every attempt to roll back gun control in the last 100 years. When many states were considering making it easier to obtain a concealed handgun permit (now some 40 states are so-called “shall issue”), police chiefs and gun-ban groups warned of “blood in the streets” and “road rage turned violent”. None of that has materialized, for the reason I mentioned above: murderous hot-heads don’t generally apply for concealed handgun permits.

It’s my fervent hope that Gov. Kaine sees the light and signs this bill. Then Nick can spend a few years studiously avoiding restaurants serving alcohol for fear of spontaneous gun violence, and perhaps then he’ll notice the conspicuous failure of the sky to fall and the world to end, and rethink his ignorant and poorly-reasoned position.