Would you feel comfortable with movie theaters allowing people to carry concealed weapons?

No. How do you know which idiot is a mass murderer and which is just a concerned citizen? You don’t. I do not want to be in a theater with some idiot that has rage issues and pulls his gun because someone is texting.

Yes, especially if I was carrying, too.

Not in a million years! I’m appalled by Perry’s proposal to allow guns in theaters.

Remember the guy who got shot and killed last year in a Florida movie theater for just texting? The shooter was a retired police officer. Imagine sitting next to drunk cowboy with a gun.

Maybe if I was sitting in the back row. Otherwise I’d be paranoid that someone might shoot me in the back of the head. Even when I go to a restaurant, I like to sit with my back against the wall where I can see everything “in case I’m attacked.”

No. As stupid as Rick Perry. All it will do is kill more people.

No.

Carry open law, or none at all.

yes. The vast majority of CCW citizens are level headed, trained,responsible people. a large number of them are military trained. Fair enough to say there are a few wacky idiots who get certified too. But the screening process found no criminal behavior, and the instructor is supposed to note and fail people he perceives as ‘unstable’. These wacky ones are likely to carry a weapon whether they have a license or not. But to judge every carrier (thousands) based on the actions of a few (a few) is kind of unfair to my way of thinking. I think it might surprise you how many people you walk by in the street are carrying and nothing is happening. I don’t carry as much as I used to, but take comfort should some yo-yo start shooting up the place, one of my brothers in arms is likely to be and may reduce the number of casualties.

@majorrich Since the movie theater is completely dark, you’ll also be risking shooting and killing innocent people. I think it’s a tough call

Concealed weapons carriers are not the run of the mill weapons owners. They are highly trained, and their background has been thoroughly checked. I’d have NO problem with it. In fact, I might be more comfortable with a bunch of them in a theater than a bunch of police officers (considering the brain dead policing that often happens nowadays).

Not a tough call for me, @rockfan. If I want to find myself in the middle of a gunfight, I’ll go see a spaghetti western in 3D.

Hands up everyone who wants open carry in Congress….

You’ve had concealed carry in many states for decades. You just don’t notice it – because the weapons are concealed.

It means everyone with a concealed weapon can then let loose in the dark to take out the mad gunman who is firing indiscriminately in the dark at the audience trying to watch ‘Mad Violence III’ on the screen. Welcome to America!

It reminds me of this video: Wrong Diner.

Typical right wing suggestion. This will lead to more killings,not fewer.

But remember – each one of these killings makes the NRA happy. If there were no mass killings, the NRA would likely go out of business, or have fewer members.

So if you want to know who benefits from these killings – look no further than the NRA.

@LuckyGuy Every movie theater I’ve been to in the past 15 years has been a gun free zone, especially Cinemark, Regal, and AMC

No.

To those that are asserting that we’d all be safer if everyone were carrying a gun at all times – while I don’t think this is correct, I also don’t think it even matters.

There are plenty of ways we could make society safer. And some of those ways we already reject as being too much of a compromise:

While people complain today about privacy and government surveillance of its citizens, most people would be unwilling to put up with a perpetual and oppressive system of surveillance and lack of privacy. Yet, this would increase our safety. If the government could know about a crime that was being planned before it happened, it could stop it.

We understand this, and we choose to be less safe because a complete surveillance state wouldn’t be worth it.

When I think about everyone walking around with a gun or two, I discover that this is a version of the world that is worse than our current state. It’s better to risk me and my whole family being killed in a movie theater, than it is to create a society that resembles a modern cowboy or post-apocalyptic movie.

@rockfan What state are you in? I’m in NY. I never noticed a sign. (That’s not to say there isn’t one someplace ) I can definitely say I have never seen guards with metal detectors checking people like they do in gov’t buildings – and at gun shows.by the way. .
If there is such a policy with “Gun Free Zone” signs it is enforced like the “Drug Free Zone” signs around schools. It is CYA for the theater in case something goes wrong., e.g., The nut job Holmes violated their policy. so the shooting is not their fault.

Yep, a darkened cinema, where someone starts shooting, and you can not see where it is coming from, so you start shooting at where you believe it is coming from, and then the next guy starts shooting in your general direction because he thinks that you are the bad guy, and on and on it unfolds, until you have a violent shootout where everyone shoots at everyone.
A beautiful massacre.
And if you want to start some carnage, you do not even need to bring a gun yourself.
Just setup your mobile phone to time its internal camera flash with a pre-recorded gun sound (I am sure there is an app for that), and bam, wannabe rambos start rampaging.

No, I would not be comfortable. I have a phobia with guns.

The darkened theatre scenario and the associated thoughts reflected here reflect a certain naievity to the thoughts a CCW carrier goes through. Despite having the authority to carry a weapon on their person, they are still legally responsible for the consequences of discharging the weapon. So a movie theatre hero owns that bullet and has to be able to justify himself to the police when they eventually arrive. The idea is if lots of SANE ( that’s the majority of us) are sitting in that theatre, an active shooter won’t know if the woman right behind him on the aisle seat just happens to be packing. More of a deterrent effect to my mind.

You live in the country with the most heavily armed common plebs in the western world, and you have the highest gun homicide rate in the western world, with a rate 6 times that of Luxembourg, the second highest rate in the developed world.
Clearly this “deterrance” concept is an ineffective farce.

I’m comfortable around guns, as long as I can check to see if they’re loaded or not. But imagine the carnage if there were a bunch of gun toting people in the theater when a shooter opens up. They’d slaughter each other.

I can’t argue with the statistics. But the people killing one another are almost exclusively in commission of a crime, and almost never involving a licensed carrier. We are in a situation here where there are already too many guns in circulation to try to control, so in trying, only the law abiding ones least likely to be involved in violent crime are the one that get affected.

GA @majorrich

@majorrich You nailed it.
When the nut job started firing and slowly walking up the aisle casually killing anyone he found cowering in their seats I’ll bet there were a lot of people wishing someone, anyone, was capable of stopping him.

^ You seem to be suggesting that we drive our policy and behavior based on the way that this one event went. You should be able to acknowledge that had the theater been dark or anything else different about it – and everyone was carrying guns – it could have been far worse, right?

Out of curiosity, as I mentioned above, do you lean anti-privacy as well in the privacy/safety debate? Would you advocate for an extreme police state in hopes of stopping acts of violent crime? And overall, what makes you so optimistic about humanity? If trained professionals (the police) can’t seem to stop overusing their guns, what leads you to believe that if everyone is armed, you won’t have a ridiculous increase in violence? And are you comfortable with interpersonal relationships being perpetually colored by the threat of lethal force?

@DoNotKnow I’m not suggesting everyone carry guns. I am suggesting that one person licensed to carry, knowledgeable and skilled in its proper use, might have been able to save a lot of lives. I believe licensing is a good and necessary requirement.

If everyone in the theater had a gun the situation would have been a (tragically comic) disaster.

Why not. If someone has intent on causing firearm mayhem in a theatre, they are going to figure out a way to get one into the place anyway, allowed or not.
I have a CCW permit. I don’t carry in the theatre, but it is OK with me if others do.

Isn’t it legal now in most states? If someone has a permit they have a permit. Is there a law saying you can carry in the supermarket, but not in a cinema? I thought it’s up to the theatre to make a policy not to allow guns on their property?

When I lived in Memphis many bars, and some other establishments, had signs saying “no guns allowed” which was so odd to me, I had never seen that before. I had never lived in a place that had so many gun owners before. My impression is it’s better to live where there are not so many guns. I felt the least safe in the Memphis area of all the places I have lived. However, after living there I understand why gun people feel they need to carry to feel safe from the bad people who are carrying. The culture about guns is completely different from one part of the country to the next. I think it is extremely difficult to turn a place like Memphis around by making laws against guns. It’s too far gone in places like that. You have to fix many underlying cultural and economic things first. It’s almost impossible for a person living in a place that rarely sees gun violence, who didn’t grow up around guns, or gun talk, to fully understand what it is like to live in a place where guns are prevalent and vice versa, unless the two different people actually experience it.

Definitely. To what purpose? Do you really think some fat suburbanite with a Rambo-like hero complex is going to shoot down the next creep who shoots up a theater? Give me a break. Where were they when that guy shot Senator Gabrielle Giffords? Statistically, being Arizona, there should have been a few armed heroes in the audience. But I’m pretty sure they were busy pissing their pants—while ducking for cover. In places like Florida especially, these guys are everywhere, if you look at the amount of carrying permits that have been issued per population. Take any of these public killings; where are your armed citizens when their moment of glory finally arrives? They are under the tables with everyone else because to be armed is a whole lot different than being trained, experienced and always on the ready.

^^I seem to remember there was someone carrying a gun during the shooting in AZ. I think he said he didn’t feel he could safely do anything. I might be remembering incorrectly.

^^Precisely. And he was probably right.

Edit: In first post above, I meant to say Definitely NOT.

I wonder how attendance would be affected for the first theater to post “Guns Allowed” at their front door?

Out of curiosity I did a quick search for numbers. I encourage other to do the same.

4.8% of Americans are licensed have CCW. (I could not find number for just NY. I suspect it is much lower since it is difficult to get one in NY)
Your permit is revoked if you have a felony, mental illness, firearms violation and probably other offenses

How law abiding are permit holders?

“One extremely easy fact to get information on is how law – abiding permit holders
are. .....
“Consider the two large states at the front of the current debate, Florida and
Texas: Both states provide easy web access to detailed records of permit holders.
During over two decades, from October 1, 1987 to May 31, 2014, Florida has
issued permits to more than 2.64 million people, with the average person
holding a permit for more than a decade.

Few, 168 (about 0.006%) have had their permits revoked for any type of firearms related violation, the most common being accidentally carrying a concealed handgun into a gun free zone such as a school or an airport, not threats or acts of violence.
It is an annual rate of 0.0002 percent.
The already low revocation rate has been declining over time.
Over the last 77 months from January 2008 through May 2014, just 4 permits have been revoked for firearms related violations. With an average of about 875,000 active permit holders per year during those years, the annual revocation rate for firearms
related violations is 0.00007 percent .”

Not surprisingly permit holders are law abiding citizens.

Also few permit holders (I have no statistics just anecdotal info) actually carry their gun with them at any one time. The typical carry rate in public is maybe 10–20 times in a year. Call it 30 for easy math. That means 1 in 12 of 4.8% or 0.4%, or 1 person in 250. That is way on the high side. And really on the high side for NY state.

The crimes are not committed by permit holders. It is the non-permit holders who do the bad deeds.

I also live in NY and have never seen signs saying guns are not allowed in any of the movie theaters I’ve been to (which often are in Connecticut as well as in NY).

If someone has a concealed weapon, how would the theater management know unless they used metal detectors? It would have to be “the honor system,” meaning relying on people to be honest about it.

The problem with carrying guns, concealed or out in the open, is that you create a gun culture, a crime waiting to happen. Gun deaths are highest where there is the most gun ownership. Many gun deaths are accidental.

How can you know if someone is carrying a concealed weapon, since the purpose of concealing a weapons is to keep you from being able to spot it? And of those carrying concealed weapons, how do you determine who is permitted and who is not? You would first have to frisk people and then ask them to show their permits. Not going to happen.

I’m divided on this issue as I normally would say “no”, however, I have known a man that has a CCW permit here in CA. for the last year and he is the nicest, most responsible, stable, good guy with as much training as a law enforcement officer. I would absolutely trust him to make a good judgement call in any situation. While I am not a fan of firearms in general we also need to remember that there ARE many responsible gun owners and that, in certain situations, they could absolutely be an asset.