Why don’t most Republican state legislatures allow guns in their workplace?
by digby
I wrote a piece for Salon today about the odd fact that while legislatures are legalizing the carrying of loaded firearms where the rest of us work they don’t think it’s a good idea where they work.
However, even as Republican legislatures throughout the land are working overtime to make it legal to openly carry loaded weapons virtually everywhere in our society, most have not followed Michigan’s example and legalized carrying guns in state houses. Even in Georgia where they passed a “guns everywhere” bill, including in airports outside security checkpoints, they exempted their own state capitol. This is curious. In other situations they would say “an armed society is a polite society” and argue that if everyone carried loaded weapons it would deter any “bad guys” from shooting up the place. This argument assumes that most of these “bad guys” intend to live through the confrontation which may be a bit of wishful thinking since most mass killings result in the perpetrator getting killed by police or committing suicide.
But they also have a back-up argument which accepts that while these crazed killers would probably take out quite a few civilians they would leave a smaller body count if the good guys with guns could take them out earlier in the massacre. (This is supposed to make those of us who argue for gun control feel better for some reason …) But they do have a point. Perhaps fewer people would be killed in the long run, although there is evidence that most of these armed civilians would not be inclined to join a gunfight with a mad man and would likely kill civilians themselves in the melee. But nonetheless, this is their best argument for open carry in workplaces like bars, restaurants, libraries, elementary schools and well … everywhere: more citizens with guns in public will save lives.
So why don’t they allow guns in the state capitols where they work?
They don’t allow them because they know that a bunch of armed zealots will show up and try to intimidate them. Like they did in Texas this week.
And sadly, since it happened Texas, ground zero for the Open Carry movement, there will be no legislation to stop them. Instead, the legislators who were threatened have proposed that the state install panic buttons in legislators offices so that when some armed lunatic or angry gun nut threatens them in their office they can easily call for the police. Their other option is to engage in a gun battle. Asking anyone to give up their guns for even the few minutes they’re in the state capitol would destroy the American way of life.
Anyway, read on. This story’s a doozy.
h/t to JS.