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The Well bar in Raleigh, NC (courtesy tw5p.com)

Grass Roots North Carolina (GRNC) writes [via ammoland.com]:

House Bill 937, which became effective on October 1, 2013, expanded North Carolina’s concealed handgun law into restaurants where alcohol is sold and consumed, assemblies of people for which admission is charged, parades and funerals, state and municipal parks, and (to a limited extent) educational properties. As always, opponents and media naysayers predicted shootings in bars, guns stolen from vehicles at schools, and various other sorts of mayhem. They used platitudes like “guns and alcohol don’t mix.” As the GRNC explained endlessly . . .

Concealed handgun permit-holders, by virtue of background checks and training, had proven themselves sane, sober and law-abiding since 1995, with a rate of permit revocation on the order of three tenths of a single percent. We explained that permit-holders in restaurants would still be prohibited from imbibing alcohol.

But the dire predictions persisted. Editorials ridiculed legislators. UNC president Tom Ross sent UNC police chiefs to testify against the bill, claiming it would hamper their ability to protect students. Gun control activists pushed restaurants to post against concealed carry.

So what has happened?

It has now been one year since HB 937 became effective. So what has happened? Nothing. GRNC monitors clipping services for gun-related incidents. Just like Virginia, Ohio, Tennessee and other states which adopted restaurant carry, however, we have been unable to find a single instance of a concealed handgun permit-holder misusing a gun in a restaurant or educational property.

North Carolina State Fair

NC State Fair: The latest battleground

Unfortunately, this great news is completely lost on NC Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. The Commissioner says he will post the North Carolina State Fair against concealed carry even though statutes adopted in HB 937 now prohibit him from doing so.

He apparently believes that even despite passing concealed carry in 1995; Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground and expanded concealed carry into parks and elsewhere in 2011; and HB 937 in 2013 – all without the mayhem predicted by opponents – somehow, the state fair must be a different and more dangerous place than all the others.

So the NC State Fair is the latest battleground in the fight for gun rights in North Carolina. Below, find links to news stories about Commissioner Troxler’s misguided battle to endanger families, empower criminals, and flout state law at this year’s fair. Please click on the links to add your pro-gun, pro-law comments to these media items. Point out that it is illegal and dangerous for Troxler to post the fairgrounds.

While you’re at it, ask both Troxler and the media, “Where’s the mayhem?”

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52 COMMENTS

  1. Somebody should do a study on Iowa where you can carry in a bar and drink until your BAC hits .08% legally and the state always ranks in the lowest 5 states for homicide rate.

    • Someone should do a study in Pennsylvania where you can legally carry in a bar and drink until you’re dead.

      Because the problem isn’t drinking and carrying a firearm. The problem is irresponsibility.

      If you’re the kind of person that can’t drink and control themselves then leave your guns at home. Simple.

      • “If you’re the kind of person that can’t drink and control themselves then leave your guns at home. Simple.”

        If you’re the kind of person who can’t drink and control themselves then don’t drink. You’re the kind who ruins things for everyone else who can. My 2 cents.

        • Yes indeedy! Ruiners gonna ruin. Irresponsible people doing irresponsible things irresponsibly. Damn. Thats only 3, can’t fit 4 irresponsible-s in there. 😉

        • me too, still don’t drink at the bars when I carrying though. people don’t usually believe “I had only one drink” and a jury would be even less inclined to believe you. they may think you were party to a drunkin shootout and the prosecutor will argue it was

    • Well, there was that one time someone in the Des Moines area got wasted and tried to trade their gun for more booze. No one died, though, so not much was made of it.

    • That’s Adam Putnam for you…

      He was a heavy in Congress and got tired of the Washington B.S.

      Florida got the best part of that trade.

  2. This may seem a bit off-topic, but I think it applies. I lived in Iowa my entire life until I retired in 2007. We moved to Nevada which was and is a “shall issue” state. I received training and got my CCW. In 2012 we traveled back to Iowa to visit relatives and friends. At this time Iowa had just passed legislation to become “shall issue” (it had always been “may issue.”) We stayed part of the time with a friend near Des Moines who is an attorney for the state. She was beside herself because she Just Knew that the murder rate was going to sky rocket and there would be gun fights in the streets. I tried to tell her, to no avail, that those things just don’t happen and legal armed citizens are not going to go crazy and kill people. Well, as we know, the murder rate hasn’t gone up and people don’t go crazy from carrying a gun. I didn’t have the heart to tell her my personal weapon was locked up in our car ( I won’t carry in someone’s home without their permission) because I’m sure she would have refused to let us stay another night in her home.

    • Those kind of people just cannot comprehend that evil people will do evil things regardness of what any law says. It is only by complying with law that people are lawful.

  3. Don’t worry, eventually there will be a bad actor who does something stupid (and happens to have a permit instead of the normal every day kind of bad actor who carries illegally) and suddenly the whole guns in bars thing will become the worst blood-soaked idea ever.

  4. Was in Ashville, NC, in May for a wedding. Every restaurant we attended had alcohol. At no point was I forced to deploy my sidearm against a drunken, obstreperus cowboy.

    • You aren’t likely to find many cowboys in Asheville. I imagine you ran into a few Birkenstock wearing hippies that smelled suspiciously like a mixture of pot and patchouli though.

      The only place in NC that leans further left than Asheville is Chapel Hill, and that’s because Asheville is nestled in the mountains and surrounded by mountain folk that have a meaner libertarian streak than just about anybody you’ll ever meet.

      • “surrounded by mountain folk that have a meaner libertarian streak than just about anybody you’ll ever meet.” Yup. Many of my cousins live there. Describes them perfectly.

      • That was good, dead on. Now, if only NC would get rid of its jim crow era pistol purchase permit and go to NICS it would be much better.

      • Why’s everyone gotta hate on Birkenstocks…? I wear manly work boots most of the time, but when you have some birks that have conformed to your arches, its like stepping into slippers lined with chinchillas that massage your feet. Without the chinchilla fur. Hippies wouldn’t go for that, but damn that would feel great.

        • Diversify the economy beyond tourism and brewing and bring some better paying jobs up here, and it would be damn near perfect.

        • It’s really depressing that the only real money in that town is the tourism. The breweries are building, but I’d guess they’re a very small part of Asheville’s overall income. Shame that the place sucks economically, I love the area. Though last time I was out it seemed like the budding food culture had died off.

          Side note: I haven’t been able to get Pisgah brews out here in the Triangle lately, been jonesing for their pale. Have about 30 500ml bottles of various Wicked Weed brews stocked up though. Woohoo!

        • People are starting to notice that Asheville is stagnating economically, so hopefully something will start changing as people react. The breweries are drawing people into the area, but they’re still mostly low wage jobs with a few better paying ones (the actual brewers). The food culture is still here, too, but there has been some turn over. We’ll see if that actually turns into another wave of openings or if it just winds down.

          I’m relatively new to beers, but I’ve discovered a special place in my heart (and liver) for Wicked Weed sours!

        • <— Carolina girl, wearing Birks and my pistol, with libertarian registered voter ID card in my purse lol. Love it!

      • Moved to AZ this past May after living in NC for 25 years.

        Now that I’m here, I’ve discovered that while I like AZ’s laws better, I much prefer the people of the Southeast. The people of the Southwest aren’t bad, but they aren’t my Carolinians. I’ll be goin’ home one day. But for now, time to play in the desert.

  5. Funny, I just got back from picking up lunch at a local eatery. A gentleman with his four kids and wife near me made me when I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket. He grabbed my hand to shake and said “Thank you” on my way out. little uncomfortable, but touching nonetheless… None of this would have happened last year

    It still irks me, though, that here in NC I can now carry in a bar/restaurant, in parks, at a parade, etc. But a single drop of alcohol makes means I disarm outside of my home. And I can’t even LEGALLY have a beer with dinner and carry at home because I rent (Yay! Another group of people legislating something they don’t fully comprehend!) and am not the owner of the property.

    GRNC is doing good work here. NC is making loads of progress, but we’re still not where we should/could be.

    • Stay away from beer. Alcohol leads to dehydration and dehydration leads to kidney stones. As a guy who’s had a stone, it ain’t a joking matter.

      • Eugh. Kidney stones. If I choice between that and pissing razor blades, I’d much rather piss razor blades.

    • Constitutional carry would result in me moving back sooner rather than later.

      It gets introduced every year…just wish we could get it passed and get the PPP dropped, then we’d be in business…

  6. No bloody shirts no crazy persons with a gun drunk running amok,.
    Its the same old, same old everywhere.
    You cant change an Antis opinion with facts. Its a waste of time.
    Other then for revenue there shouldn’t even be a permitting system in this country.
    After all is said and done. What other natural human right is payable to the State??
    Let alone all of these bazillions of useless gun laws.
    A law abiding person isn’t going to go nutz and shoot up the place just because they can.
    Never have never will.

  7. We had the same kind of breathless, knickers-wetting hysteria from the ivory towers of academia here in Idaho this past year, when the state legislature passed a law allowing people with “enhanced” Idaho concealed weapons licenses to carry on the campuses of public universities/colleges. The college presidents and the usual anti-gun suspects warned us there would be blood soaking the classrooms, when “drunken frat boys” went wild and disgruntled students shot professors who expressed unpopular opinions. The law became effective on July 1st, and so far the only shooting was a professor who was apparently playing with his pocket pistol during a class lecture, and shot himself in the leg. So far, none of the drunken frat boys or students have been a problem. The solution: ban gun ownership by college professors.

    Oh yeah, Idaho has no restrictions on where you carry or what you drink while you carry. However, if you shoot someone while you are under the influence of alcohol, you had better be able to show a bullet hole or a knife wound that was inflicted by the other guy before you shot him, and you had better not have been engaged in a verbal/physical altercation due to the booze – otherwise the presumption will be that you were the aggressor. Idaho laws are generally designed to prevent or punish “malum in se ” criminal activity, rather than “malum prohibitum” actions. We are just a bunch of wild-eyed anarchists.

    (N.B.: Malum prohibitum (plural mala prohibita, literal translation: “wrong [as or because] prohibited”) is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute, as opposed to conduct evil in and of itself, or malum in se.)

  8. Don’t be fooled by the low key activity of the gun-grabbers. They are low key for a reason. I believe they are doing this to get more of their own elected.

    They are there and AWAITING A TIME WITH PATIENCE until they can strike another time. It’s like Vietnam, all over again. The killing scum just wait till they feel superior and then attack!

    If you had poked a bear, wouldn’t you let it settle down before going after it again? They know they are wrong and they know the public has been aroused. They know they do not have the vote, therefor the low key.

    Just trying to get the word out. not trying to hijack the thread.

    • In Wyoming, they have this silly “51%” rule. If the establishment makes 51% or more of their revenue from booze, you can’t carry in there.

      This leads to some silly conversations I have with some eateries that have happy hours:

      – “Do you make 51% of your revenues from booze?”

      “Are you carrying?”

      – “Not just now, but if the answer is ‘no’, then I will the next time.”

      The best reply I’ve received was this:

      “Oh, just shut up and feel free to pack it concealed in here. But it’d better be concealed – I don’t want to deal with complaints about someone carrying a gun.”

      Even in Wyoming, we have busybodies in the legislature.

  9. Am I the only one who has noticed that the blood hasn’t ever run in the street? State by state: shall-issue, guns in bars, fewer “gun-free zones”, all the way to constitutional carry. No rivers of blood to be found anywhere.

    • No, you’re not the only one to notice.

      I used to have a paper file (ie, a real file in a file cabinet) of clippings out of the newspapers in the 90’s of all the projection, angst and pearl-clutching by newspaper writers about how there were going to be rivers of blood from allowing shall-issue CCW to go through.

      I used to wait a year or two, then write letters to these clowns, with a xerographic copy of their original article, then articles that commented on declining crime rates, declining gun violence, etc, demanding “Where’s the rivers of blood you promised us?”

      Never, ever have I received one reply back from any of these clowns. Ever.

      I once called into a local news/talk radio show, where one of these local scribblers was being interviewed, and I laid out the facts. I mentioned that I had written to him months prior, demanding to know where the promised rivers of blood were.

      The talk show host cut me off and disconnected the call – and he was a supposed ‘conservative’ – but obviously wanted to not embarrass his buddy, the city’s paper op-ed writer.

      They never, ever want to admit that they were wrong. Therefore, I have ceased being civil to these people. When I now confront them on their idiotic projection and predictions, I go for full-on humiliation and destruction of their personality. I no longer care to take the high road. They’re liars, frauds, simpletons and witless morons, and that’s the sort of nomenclature I’ll use on days when I feel some civility remaining within me.

  10. Booze was the first crusade by the sort of female activist that forms the backbone of MDA. Reading the detailed history of Prohibition gives one wonderful insights into their personality type – the older, white female busybody who doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about people who really need help. No, they’re out to impose their will on other people, but most especially men.

    There’s a strong streak of misandry that runs in these types of nosy, bossy, busybody women. If men enjoy “X,” then we must control/ban/moralize against “X,” for no other reason than some men enjoy it. You see it today in MADD, you see it in MDA, you see it in the anti-smoking movement, etc.

    There are some women who just cannot be content to “live and let live.” Their cause changes, but the personality type does not.

    • It’s rather remarkable how much the anti-gunners have in common with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and the Anti Saloon League (ASL) in the lead up to Prohibition. Note the demonizing of beer by associating it with anti-German sentiment; much akin to associating gun owners with terrorists.

      For more, see PBS site for Ken Burn’s film “Prohibition”
      http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/roots-of-prohibition/

      ——————-

      From Smithsonian.com, rather stunning parallels to Bloomberg’s gun-control ambitions:

      “Wayne B. Wheeler: The Man Who Turned Off the Taps”
      Prohibition couldn’t have happened without Wheeler, who foisted temperance on a thirsty nation 90 years ago

      http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/wayne-b-wheeler-the-man-who-turned-off-the-taps-14783512/?no-ist

      “Wheeler was a small man, 5-foot-6 or 7… who, in the description of the militantly wet Cincinnati Enquirer, “made great men his puppets.” On his slight frame he wore a suit, a waistcoat and, his followers believed, the fate of the Republic.”

      “The ASL’s assiduous attention to Congress had made wet politicians wobble, uncertain politicians sprint for dry shelter and dry politicians flex their biceps. Heading toward the 1916 elections, the league’s political expenditures exceeded the 2010 equivalent of $50 million in a single year.”

    • Any time Progressives want to claim “the right side of history,” remind them of Prohibition. It was a Progressive scheme through and through.

      The USSR isn’t a bad reminder either, but it’s more bombastic and harder to prove (despite the facts, not because of them).

  11. I’ll be damned if I ever go to a bar unarmed. I’m in Texas, so its not kosher, legally speaking, but what one doesn’t see, isn’t there. Until it is. Then, I’m not worried about legal reprocussions, seeing how my life must be in danger. Just don’t go poop and let your pistol fall and everything will be good.

  12. This year the Minnesota State Fair barred guns for the first time ever, making it a “gun-free zone.” Also for the first time ever, a business at the fair was robbed at gunpoint. This took place at the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild exhibit, which was jacked for more than $10,000. Coincidence?

  13. Always with the screeching&caterwauling about blood in the streets, and yet they only want to stop legal carriers of weapons. Never hear them wailing and gnashing their teeth about illegal carriers of weapons. Guess they fear them more than us, just as they fear muslims and refuse to criticize them. Hmmmm, think I am seeing a pattern here.

  14. How would the NC State Fair even know that a person is carry concealed unless there were an incident ??

  15. Even here in Massachusetts, birthplace of the species “libtard moonbat,” (or is that moonbat libtard?) we’ve been able to lawfully carry in bars and restaurants ever since ltc’s have been in existence, there are no rivers of blood. Certainly not from licensed gun owners.

    • And we all know how “parks” bring out the evil in inanimate objects AND people, thanks to Wes Craven and Steven King. 😉

  16. “Just don’t go poop and let your pistol fall and everything will be good.” Lol, agree! Not only revealing your pistol but what a pain to have it drop in the water and maybe get some poop on it. Then trying to clean it up while in the stall trying to act like nothing happened. That would really be a challenge. 😉

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