Americans continue to seek their old Wild, Wild West vision, as manifested in their favorite cowboy movies, looking toward the day when it is commonplace for people to walk around with gun-holsters packed, or at least for white people to be strapped, with an implied license to shoot down any darkie who looks threatening at them or gives them lip. I find it funny that this should be an issue in the 21st century, but here we are.
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Illinois, the last of the 50 states to ban concealed carry, ended its holdout this month after a Second Amendment court challenge. In an alarming turnabout, the Legislature enacted a law that sets no limit on the number of guns or ammunition anyone with a permit can carry. It also allows patrons to tote their weapons to restaurants where liquor sales make up no more than 50 percent of the establishment’s gross revenue (such are the nuances of supposedly safety-minded lawmakers).
The number of Americans with concealed-carry permits is now around eight million, according to a conservative estimate by the Government Accountability Office. Florida, a leader in the legislative mayhem, enacted the first Stand Your Ground law in 2005, setting a lethal precedent that figured in the Trayvon Martin case and tripled the rate of justifiable homicides in the state. More than 30 other states have followed suit, extending traditional self-defense doctrine into the streets, far beyond a gun owner’s home. On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. properly denounced these laws as senseless invitations to “sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods.”
Mississippi went even further in this year’s laissez-faire gun derby by enacting a law allowing adults to flaunt their weapons unconcealed in public without the need for a permit. The district attorney in Jackson and other law enforcement professionals are currently battling the law’s Wild West implications in court, asking what might happen when police officers responded to a nightclub disturbance involving cocky drinkers armed and ready to draw.
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