On December 22, 2011, just three days before Christmas, Meredith Graves of Tennessee was in New York City and decided to visit the 911 Memorial Site. Nothing wrong with that, I’m sure by now, thousands of people do so on a daily basis.
Meredith is one of what I’m sure are many thousands of people in Tennessee that have a license to carry a firearm back in that state. Now I’m going to step out on a limb here and guess that Meredith drove up to The Big Apple, because if she had flown, she would have been stopped at the airport down there, and I would likely never have heard of her or be writing this article.
Anyway, the lady is used to packing heat, which I not only have no problem with, I applaud her. If more women did, there would be a lot less crime against women; for that matter, if more men and women did, there would be less crime overall. Meredith’s problem lies in one of the most important issues all firearms licensing instructors stress to their students; and that is, if you are traveling out of state and bringing your gun with you, check in advance to find out about the specific laws in the states you will be traveling through. This should have been especially apparent to her given that most people I know, (and I know lots) that carry firearms, recognize that New York City has among the most outrageous and restrictive anti-gun laws in the entire country.
Another little secret is this, if you have a license to carry a concealed weapon from any state, it should always be concealed and you don’t need to ever let anyone know about it unless you need to use it, and in that case, it’s do or die anyway. But even if you are licensed to carry a concealed weapon, there are some places that you are not supposed to carry your sidearm, and as a reminder, there are usually signs at the entries. Mind you, you’ll sometimes find metal detectors at some of these places, and you may or may not want to temporarily turn your weapon over to some of the rent a cops at these entry points. This is especially so if you are not in the state where you are licensed to carry, and the people manning the metal detectors are actual trained police officers. As Meredith quickly found out while trying to do the right thing, you can get arrested on the spot. Sadly, she is only one of many that make such mistakes every year.
Regardless of police presence and signs, and sans the presence of a metal detector, if you are carrying and there is a sign, (possibly arbitrarily posted by an owner) that says ‘no weapons allowed,’ you have two choices. You can simply ignore it, go about your business, and keep your mouth shut about something no one is supposed to know about in the first place, or you can make an about face and leave the area. Personally, I prefer the former option as opposed to the latter.
But now this story is going to address the bigger picture and real problem, and that is a matter of constitutional law. We have a thing called the Bill of Rights, which is made up of the first 10 Amendments to the US Constitution. All of these amendments are precious, however the second is the one that protects the other nine. We have countless groups in America that are designed to protect the Second Amendment from those who would diminish it, the NRA, The Second Amendment Foundation, GOAL, Armed Females of America, and so on. I call upon these groups to not only come to the aid of this woman and several other recent instances, but also to make this a really big issue during this election cycle. There should be no candidate for any office that doesn’t get grilled on this crucial issue. The Second Amendment says, “….the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,” it does not include any exceptions due to liberal agenda.
David DiCrescenzo
Publisher/Editor in Chief
Egg Zellent!
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