Will you be visiting Georgia now with it's "Guns Everywhere" Bill?

Well, I live in Georgia, so there’s no escape.

To answer your second question: NO – tourism was not taken into account. This was propelled by the right wing legislators following the conservative line. There might have been one small mention of tourism, but nothing of significance. Once the republican legislature gets something like this going, it’s like feeding red meat to a hungry lion.

I was out to dinner last night—I didn’t see anyone carrying any firearms. But no surprise, the law is too new. If I go to see fireworks tomorrow down in Norcross, I wonder how many folks will be carrying.

My guess is that except for a few rowdy assholes, not much will really change.

I never planned to go their anyway. It’s a shame that a lot of beautiful places are filled with such ugly people.

@elbanditoroso I’m glad someone direct and fellow flutherian could sound off… I’m not familiar with Georgia at all so I’d love to hear more insight as to previous crime rates and such. I understand Florida has some of the nuttiest laws when it comes to gun enforcement but I understand crime rate is off the charts over there, I don’t recall reading about Georgia in this way.

I haven’t heard about this law, so I had to Google it and read up. I don’t have a problem with gun carriers. The bad guys have them for sure, so I would feel safer if the good guys were also armed.

Since we have had shootings on college campuses, elementary schools, malls, theaters and churches, I think it is a good law. So call me crazy, but I don’t want to be a sitting duck.

Would I go to visit Georgia? Sure, why not?

@pleiades – I’ll give the high level view, so keep in mind that there are lots and lots of nuances.

The south side of the city of Atlanta and one or two nearby suburbs are predominantly black. it is not unusual to have a couple of shootings a night (where they find the dead people on the sidewalk in the morning). THese are largely but not totally gang or drug related.

Outside of the inner city, Atlanta is ringed by suburbs. All of them are more caucasian in various degrees. As a rule, outside the beltway, people are better educated, average household income is higher, and houses are larger. The sort of crime you see in the suburban ring is mostly domestic violence, although there is the occasional home invasion or carjacking – although both of those are much more prevalent in the city. Yes, there are bank robberies and the occasional murder, but again, at a lower frequency. And there are a few suburbs – mostly near the interstates – where there is drug trafficking,.

Once you’re outside the metro areal (15–16 counties around Atlanta), the state is largely rural, with occasional crimes of all types, but not at the rate of Atlanta.

So .. does any of this argue for carrying firearms everywhere? No. The only potential case would be in the inner city. Out in the burbs and rural georgia, the “Carry Everywhere” is a politically motivated action, not a quantifiably justifiable one.

Are there really any surprises as to which domains in the country are likely to rush headlong toward “packin in public”? With falling crime rates nationwide, no one seems to ask: “why the urgency NOW?” Most would agree that the era of Dillinger, Baby Face and Bonnie plus Clyde is behind us. Law enforcement agencies universally decry laws liberalizing carry rules. What exactly is going on? I think the rush toward the “Tomsbstonization of our redlands is the result of the ongoing concentration of conservatives in flyover country. It’s an interesting thought that’s seldom discussed, but 120 years ago it was common to judge the advancement of civilization in the country by restrictions on gun and gunplay. A town was judged safe for women and children when the citizenry managed to pass ordinances RESTRICTING THE WEARING OF FIREARMS IN PUBLIC. Funny thing, progress.

@stanleybmanly – the right wing’s mantra is “If we can scare you, we can control you”.

Happens in the economy, in health care, and in guns.

Just watch as proposals start popping up authorizing the settlement of disputes through fast draw gunfights in the streets. It’s sad to watch as regions of the country devolve toward 1870. Exactly WHICH citizens do you suppose will find open carry laws an incentive to move to the peach state, and which will be repelled? It would be a VERY interesting situation if the flyover folks ever get their way, and manage to undo the federal safety net that transfers untold billions from blue country to the redlands.

I’ll give my net worth to any Flutherite that is directly effected negatively by this bill’s passage.

@SecondHandStoke That’s a risky promise considering that given enough time and weaponry, someone here is bound to qualify.

@SecondHandStoke – you’re on. I’ll see how it affects me in my daily life.

I don’t really get all this political hoopla, all I know is that if someone walks into a movie theater and starts shooting, I am hoping that somebody in the audience has a gun and can shoot back. I hate that “fish in a barrel” feeling.

@stanleybmanly said that crime rates are falling nationwide, and that is good to hear, but we still keep having these random acts of mass shootings in public places. If not stopped by a good guy with a gun, they are free to continue the massacre until they run out of bullets. So far every one of them have been taken down while still having hundreds of rounds to go (thank goodness).

When there is a room ful of nutters with guns, and one of them starts shooting, the result is a crossfire.

@Skaggfacemutt The problem will soon illustrate itself just as it did in Dodge City and Tombstone. When everyone has a gun and is ready to use it, when everyone is JUSTIFIED in using it, the growth industry is the funeral business. It’s been tried before, and though the country is shameful for its deficient history curriculum, the movies here are piled chockablock with illustrations of just what happens when guns replace cigarettes as the national habit.

@stanleybmanly I have a nephew whose dream location is Texas because of their liberal gun laws. He and his girlfriend went on for hours about how he would feel safer there because so many people are packing heat. The boy is about 25 and is an active duty Marine. He is politically just to the right of the Tea Party and is anti-immigration (which is ironic because his father immigrated from Mexico as a child) anti-choice, anti-Obama. I haven’t asked him because I don’t think I can stomach the answer, but I would venture a guess that he would love to move to Georgia now. So there is a snapshot of at least one person who would be attracted to Georgia because of the new laws.

I am one who would be repelled. I think guns kill people. More guns = more death. I just don’t get arming everyone to the hilt and as you so aptly put it, regressing back to 1800’s justice. If George Zimmerman didn’t have a gun Trayvon Martin would probably still be alive. If Michael Dunn hadn’t had a gun, Jordan Davis would still be alive. If Curtis Reeves had not had a gun Chad Oulson would still be alive. I just don’t buy the argument that guns make us safer. The drive to loosen gun control laws makes me nervous and frankly terrified.

Georgia is a beautiful place, as @tinyfaery said, it is sad the people are so ugly. I will not be rushing to spend any more time there.

It seems that on the first day this law went into effect things already got interesting.

@FlyingWolf It puzzles me that people cannot seem to understand that the more guns you concentrate on the streets, the more gunshot wounds there MUST be as a result. The assumption that only the bad guys will be shot is ludicrous on its face.

@Skaggfacemutt: “I don’t really get all this political hoopla, all I know is that if someone walks into a movie theater and starts shooting, I am hoping that somebody in the audience has a gun and can shoot back. I hate that “fish in a barrel” feeling.”

How often do you find yourself in a movie theater where someone is shooting people? And do we know what type of risk you are in when entering a movie theater vs other dangers? Is it possible that we are overestimating the chances of death by gun in movie theater, and that the real risk may be driving there? And is it possible that this response (“guns everywhere”) is motivated by an unjustified inflation in the perceived danger of entering a movie theater? And is it possible that this response – made in fear – could simply lead to more guns in the hands of people that you have a genuine distrust of in the first place? And would more guns in the hands of people you distrust provide you with more peace of mind?

@SecondHandStoke Well here’s day 1’s incident… http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/todays-top-stories/x1736693358/First-day-of-new-gun-law-leads-to-arrest

Pffft! Classic.
I have no plans to visit Georgia, but I think this is pretty textbook for that part of the country. The good ol’ boy mentality coupled with the intelligence of a Coon hound which, most likely. is smarter than your average redneck bubba.
I’ll visit when you pry my cold dead hands from my plate of happy brownies.

California bohemian blondes don’t do redneck bubbas, at all.

@pleiades
That also displays what sort of people will be walking around with their penis replacements:
nutters.
The very people that would use this law, are the sort of people you do not want walking behind you.

@pleiades

And how does this news item effect you directly?

And no, you know it’s existence leading you to find it and link it here doesn’t count.

I’d go, and I would feel as save as a Taliban in Gitmo, or a Brinks truck in Fort Knox.

I’ve been to Georgia several times and I don’t believe this law makes any difference to how many gun nuts were packing heat back then.
So it doesn’t matter now, either.

Township of Kennesaw GA:

Homeowners are required by law to have a firearm on property for home defense.

Needless to say home invasions are rare.

A good friend of mine works in the ER at the county hospital in Oakland, California. There are 15–20 nurses on shift at any given time. Despite pretty rigid gun laws, my friend has at least two gunshot wounds per 12— hour shift. Assuming other nurses see at least one, that’s 20 gun shots or more per day. That tells me two things: laws don’t prevent gun crime, and the heavily populated, poorer areas with higher gang and convicted criminal populations are bad places to be.
With this new law I’d stay out of many neighborhoods and areas of Atlanta. But these are not places I would have ever been in to begin with.

I will definitely continue to vacation in Savannah.

forced gun ownership: great idea!
health insurance mandate: omg evil communism!

“Forced gun ownership” isn’t de facto wealth redistribution.

Besides, as you may have guessed the law isn’t enforced.

So I’m 20 years old and bulletproof. I don’t want to spend my money on health insurance. I want to spend it on beer and gasoline.

The fact that everyone is forced to contribute to Obamacare is more proof positive that the numbers just don’t add up.

If I was still a kid I would refuse to pay Lord Obama’s fine. If I ran into any trouble I’d claim said rule was unconstitutional.

If Obamacare was as desirable as some would have us believe it wouldn’t have met with so much resistance.

But Germany has nationalized healthcare so it MUST be right for all nations, right Loli?

Sure it is. it is wealth redistribution to the gun manufacturers.
And if it was not bad enough already, that law also indirectly, but no doubt by intent, compels you to use the murder tool you are forced to buy and become a killer.
It is magnitudes worse than “obamacare” could ever be.

Sorry, that isn’t a correct comparison as the gun manufacturers have something to show for the money given them.

Yeah, the blood on their hands.

^That sounded very clever.

Enjoy your upvotes.

Oh, and everyone, spare us the mandated auto insurance argument.

That’s a state law, not a federal one. a very different matter.

@SecondHandStoke want to hear something ironic? I know someone (this is first hand, I actually know this person, it isn’t some urban legend) who, for the first time in 24 for years is not receiving a penny of government assistance as a direct result of the ACA. Yes it’s true. He is permanently and totally disabled and because of the mandate that requires insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions, he can carry his own private health insurance and not have to receive Medicaid. That’s right, instead of receiving assistance, and being incentivized not to work he is not only paying his own way, he is paying into the system. All because of the horrible socialist, nightmare Affordable Care Act. More people paying into the system would seem to be a conservative’s wet dream.

Oh and since you are “bulletproof” you shouldn’t have any problem going anywhere sick with guns, without any need to be armed yourself. So to you the entire questions must be rhetorical right?

About Kennesaw’s gun law:

1) there are no penalties for not owning a gun. This was a political move, like the rest of them.

2) There are some huge exceptions, to wit:

The law:
_(a) In order to provide for the emergency management of the city, and further in order to provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing in the city limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition therefore.
(b) Exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who suffer a physical or mental disability which would prohibit them from using such a firearm. Further exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who are paupers or who conscientiously oppose maintaining firearms as a result of beliefs or religious doctrine, or persons convicted of a felony_

I don’t know, I have mixed views on this so I’m probably going to contradict myself here simply because I have no straight answers here on this particular topic.

I’ve always been a supporter of concealed weapon laws and other means of self-defense, because a—holes are going to be armed anyways. I also believe that many lives would had been saved in a few mass shootings if at least one other person would had been armed during those rampages.

However, at the same time, I sometimes wonder if our obsession with guns, violence and hyper-masculinity and the ignorance of issues affecting young males isn’t the cause of a great deal of the violence to begin with we feel we need to defend ourselves against. This is one of the reasons why I tend to stay out of many gun rights related threads and concentrate on other issues.

I also think most conservatives are hypocrites since they’ve successfully twisted the Second Amendment to mean something it obviously doesn’t. All the while they seem to disregard the First, Fourth and Eighth Amendments in ways that would make the original framers of the U.S. Constitution roll over in their graves.

@pleiades and @FlyingWolf, that’s great two armed men can have a confrontation and no one get shot or killed. Seems to me the law prevailed getting one of the men arrested and his firearm taken away. His was the attitude that gives all gun owners a bad rap. His was the attitude which should have his weapon removed. This is a good story with a happy ending.