Yesterday, the Georgia House of Representatives approved guns in airports.  Today, the Tennessean reports that the Tennessee State Senate voted in favor of allowing the carry of guns into any establishment serving alcohol:

“The State Senate approved a bill Thursday that would let handgun owners carry their weapons into any establishment that serves alcohol, raising further doubts about an earlier compromise meant to let guns into restaurants but keep them out of bars…

The legislation would open up even more restaurants and bars to firearms than a similar law passed last year. A Nashville judge struck down that law last fall, saying it was too vague on which establishments could allow handguns and which could not….

‘It places the responsibility on the permit holder to carry safely and not consume alcohol,’ said Jackson, a Dickson Democrat.

The Senate altered Jackson’s bill to toughen the penalties for drinking alcohol in a restaurant while carrying a gun. Violators would receive at least a $500 fine, two days in jail and a three-year suspension of their carry permits.”

Read the full story here.

Just one question: where’s the next place guns will be pushed?

Gun violence in Chicago is boiling. Toddlers are being shot. The number of homicides in Chicago this year is only slightly below the number of our military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. And now two Illinois state legislators say the answer may be to bring in the National Guard.

Paul Helmke, Jesse Jackson and others demonstrate in Chicago

As a former Mayor, I know cities need all the help they can get in fighting crime, but do we want to concede that it’s time for military intervention? Still, this suggestion is worthy of debate – not because it would be a sensible solution, but because it helps focus attention on how desperate the need is in too many parts of our country to do something now about the shootings, the injuries and the deaths.

One of the problems with this proposal to bring in armed troops to deal with an armed population of criminals is its potential to make a bad situation worse. In a way, it’s not much different from what the gun pushers keep telling us. They say the problem is not that the bad guys have guns, it’s that not enough good guys with guns are countering them. But do we really want to be like Baghdad circa 2005? More guns in more places leads to more gun violence – whether accidental, unplanned, or intentional.

But cowardice in the face of the gun lobby drives elected officials to push more guns into more places, and even leads a company like Starbucks to allow guns in its stores. Alarmingly, the Starbucks officials say one of the reasons they’re for it is they don’t want their employees to have to ask customers with guns to leave – after all, those customers are armed.

So what we’re being told, either by elected officials or private sector officials, is that we don’t want to do things to restrict access to guns or where guns are taken, because we don’t have the guts to upset the people with lots of guns. We just try to stack the deck and “escalate the conflict” by trying to get more “good guys” (who we hope won’t make mistakes) with guns in our communities to counter the “bad guys” with guns.

Instead of conceding defeat, let’s take steps to make it harder for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons. That’s the proactive approach. That’s the courageous approach.

If we stopped the illegal trafficking in guns, and strengthened the ability of law enforcement officials to prevent shootings before they happened, then we wouldn’t have to be talking about calling in the National Guard.

Unless we wise up now and do the work needed to prevent a rise in gun violence, then this National Guard suggestion may be a glimpse forward into the future, when troops in our cities are the only option decision makers will think they have for dealing with 20-month-old children dying from gunshots.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported yesterday that the Georgia House of Representatives passed a bill allowing concealed carry permit holders to carry guns into areas of airports not controlled by the federal government.

Atlanta Representative Stephanie Benfield asked a question before the legislation passed that I think will resonate with a lot of people: “How are citizens safer by allowing firearms in airports?”  Read the full AJC article here.

Even more troubling is that this is coming just a few days after a man, with a concealed carry permit, was arrested at a North Carolina airport as President Barack Obama was leaving on Air Force One for going “armed to the terror of the public”.

This heartbreaking story from the Associated Press illuminates the ever-present danger of gun violence, especially involving assault weapons, in this country.

“Ian Deutch survived a recent tour of duty in Afghanistan, identifying Taliban targets for artillery strikes. But he didn’t make it through his second day back on the job as a rural Nevada sheriff’s deputy.

Deutch was gunned down Monday by a man wielding an assault rifle in a casino parking lot about 60 miles west of Las Vegas. The death of the decorated Nevada Army National Guardsman and law enforcement veteran left those who knew him stunned Tuesday.

The irony of spending a year overseas in a combat zone and then to come back and have this happen is, you know, tragic,” said Lt. Col. Scott Cunningham, a Las Vegas resident and commanding officer of Deutch’s guard unit…

Deutch’s mother told the Las Vegas Review-Journal she was devastated by her son’s death.

“He was finally safe. In our country. And somebody here kills him,” Suzy Deutch said.”

Read the full story here.

Another great editorial from the New York Times today on the anniversaries of the shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech, and the need to close the gun show loophole:

“There are two tragic anniversaries this month. It is 11 years since two Colorado students gunned down 12 of their fellow classmates and one teacher at Columbine High School and three years since 32 students and faculty members were gunned down at Virginia Tech.

Those horrors haven’t slowed the gun lobby’s relentless push to weaken the nation’s already far too weak gun laws — or Congress’s eagerness to do the gun lobby’s bidding. Last week, House Democrats had to pull back legislation that would have finally given the District of Columbia a voting representative in Congress because of amendments tacked on to the bill that would have gutted local gun laws…”

Read the full editorial here.