PUBLIC MEETINGS AND GUNS

I was recently asked whether I thought people had a Second Amendment right to bring guns to public meetings. I said no. Here’s why:

In the days of the Wild West, laws prohibiting guns in town were as common as cows. That's because the prospectors, trappers and cowboys who passed through were mostly interested in drinking and gambling, and the townsfolk prudently recognized that allowing hotheads to carry firearms in town was a greater threat to public safety than the natives roaming the hills outside of town. Of course, back then cooler heads and common sense prevailed over Second Amendment ideology, which was pretty remarkable considering that the Wild West got that name because it was mostly a lawless region.

The settlers living out West didn't view in-town gun laws as infringing upon their Second Amendment right to bear arms. People who wanted to hunt were free to hunt with a firearm. People who wanted to protect themselves were free to protect themselves with a firearm. The townsfolk simply demanded that those activities be done away from places where normal people congregated, because in their experience, that's where normal people were most likely to get harmed by wing-nuts with weapons. The same holds true today. Firearms have no place at public gatherings.