This type of bill would pass in Georgia... (purchase, live)

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by gt6974a

you think people on MARTA don't carry now???? God forbid someone who obeys the law do it.

via Wiki:
Criminal activity

Throughout MARTA's history there have been continued concerns regarding criminal activity on MARTA trains and in and around MARTA train stations. In the aftermath of a 1985 an aggrevated assault against the daughter of a Georgia State University professor complaints were made that MARTA was underreporting its annual crime statistics. A 1986 review of the previous year's records by MARTA's audit office and the state legistatures MARTA Oversight Committee showed no deliberate underreporting of crime, but rather overreporting of crime because MARTA included crimes not related to the rail line and did not adhere to the Uniform Crime Reporting system (reporting multiple crimes by the same person instead of only the most serious crime).[67]

According to Federal Transit Administration records MARTA's crime statistics are in line with those of similar-sized systems, such as Bay Area Rapid Transit in San Francisco.[68] However, high profile crimes on or near MARTA have created the impression with some that MARTA is unsafe and lacks a strong police presence.[68] In the past four years (2004-2007) MARTA has had 3 homicides and 3 rapes. The most common crime reported was larceny. The most common area for crime was MARTA's rail service, followed by MARTA's parking lots. For fiscal year 2007 MARTA had a crime rate of 2.58 percent per 1000 riders.[69]

Suburban counties have opposed expanding MARTA on the basis that it would lead to increased crime. It is alleged that because MARTA's service area includes some of Atlanta's most economically depressed and high crime neighborhoods, expansion of MARTA would allow crime to spread to suburban areas.[70]

Keeping MARTA out won't keep out the crime. If a criminal can rob a house, a criminal can steal a car. Any criminal can steal a car and drive into another county. A poor person looking for work in another county wouldn't want to steal or kill.

[green_mariner]

Originally Posted by AtlDad

I would agree with you on that. I personally don't see any reason why the government should be restricting sales of a product on one day and not the others.

Why should the government restrict access to purchasing alcohol on any day, period? You can buy cigarettes on any day and they are worse than alcohol. If you restrict Sunday alcohol sales, people will just come in on Saturday and buy twice as much.

[kagmypts]

Originally Posted by south-to-west

You want to talk about right infringement? Why in the hell is it more practical to carry a firearm on public transport than buying alcohol at the store on Sundays?

If you want to totally change the subject, I agree with you that the government should not restrict buying alcohol on Sundays. As for "right infringement", I would seriously doubt that there is a single issue where you think that the government is restricting an individual's right and I do not. In my opinion, the government should be as small and limited as possible. The government certainly has its role in protecting the greater good, but it should be done in the most limited way possible (see Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations). However, that has nothing to do with the current thread - that an individual has a right to carry a personal firearm.

[mg83]

This probably deserves is own thread, but is anyone keeping track of the murder rate this year? Seems extremely high. Every time I (reluctantly) read the AJC, there's another murder or body found in DeKalb.

Atlanta and Atlanta Metro saw a decline in murders in the last couple of years... but honestly it feels like 08 will be a return to "normalcy" in the # of violent crimes... specifically homicide.

[hairmetal4ever]

Originally Posted by Atlantasfinest

In my opinion our Georgia Legislature is continuing to embody all of the negative stereotypes about our state...Guns on Marta & Restaurants? I hope Sonny "Dummy" Purdue will resist the urge to sign this bill in. Comments anyone?

Senate OKs guns in eateries, on MARTA trains | ajc.com (http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/04/02/guns_0403.html?cxntlid=homepage_tab_newstab - broken link)

I don't see the issue. Read the Second Amendment.

Guns aren't dangerous. PEOPLE are.

[JPD]

Originally Posted by hairmetal4ever

I don't see the issue. Read the Second Amendment.

Guns aren't dangerous. PEOPLE are.

You could just as easily say "Crystal Meth isn't dangerous. PEOPLE are."

[JPD]

Jay Bookman has an interesting editorial about this issue today in th AJC:

We're locked and loaded into our Rambo fantasy | ajc.com (http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/bookman/stories/2008/04/10/bookmaned_0410.html - broken link)

We're locked and loaded into our Rambo fantasy

Published on: 04/10/08

On the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Georgia's most famous son, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the Georgia Legislature approved a bill allowing permit holders to carry concealed firearms in public places such as restaurants that serve liquor, state parks and transit systems such as MARTA.

The bill also made it legal for any nonfelon — including those without a permit — to carry a loaded firearm beneath a car seat or other easily accessible hiding place in a vehicle.

As a practical matter, those changes won't matter much. The folks who want to drive around with a loaded pistol beneath their front seat are going to indulge in that foolishness regardless of what the law says. And armed permit holders won't suddenly start using their weapons to either save or take lives in restaurants or parks.

Nonetheless, the law does testify to the enduring power and political appeal of what you might call the Rambo fantasy. And it reveals once again how easily that delusion can frustrate passage of common-sense gun-safety laws that might save lives.

We all know how that fantasy goes, because it has become a stock story in American pop culture: Bad Guy pulls a gun and starts blowing innocent people away; Good Guy pulls his own gun and kills Bad Guy, saving lives and becoming a hero.

In real life that rarely if ever happens. But we pass laws like this anyway, almost as a way to pay homage to that cultural fantasy and to placate the dreamers who insist that the law recognize their right, however far-fetched, to someday be that hero.

You know who those folks are. They're the ones who like to claim that if they had been carrying that tragic day at Virginia Tech, a lot of those kids would still be alive today. They believe that the problem with today's society is not too many guns in too many places, but rather too few, and they see themselves as potential white knights, just waiting for a dragon to come along.

But those dragons rarely do. In 2006, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Statistics, guns were used in a total of 10,177 homicides. Of that enormous total, just 195 homicides were categorized as justifiable, defined by the bureau as "the killing of a felon, during the commission of a felony, by a private citizen."

In percentage terms, 98.1 percent of the time a private citizen kills someone with a firearm, the killing is not justified. Yet because of the power of the Rambo fantasy, we write laws as if that remaining 1.9 percent of gun killings were the majority.

And even that 1.9 percent figure is a vast exaggeration of how many times the fantasy comes true. The FBI doesn't break the numbers down further, but I'd bet that almost all those 195 cases involved a private citizen who legally used a gun to stop a burglary or home invasion, not a crime conducted in a public place.

Having followed and participated in the gun debate, and having used guns myself for a time in my life, I'd also bet that rather than being brave souls ready to protect the rest of us, most Rambo fantasists are intimidated by the world around them.

That conclusion was crystallized for me years ago when a state legislator from suburban Atlanta announced in a gun debate that he would never dare to dine in an Atlanta restaurant unless he was carrying a firearm.

Now, frail little old ladies with walkers ate in those restaurants regularly without apparent fear, but this guy — a young man well over 6 feet tall — thought it was too dangerous unless he could carry a gun with him.

Apparently, the heft of 2 pounds of steel in a shoulder holster gives some of those people the courage they need to go out into a world that otherwise terrifies them. It gives them the bravery that nature failed to provide.

That's a big part of the reason that lax gun laws are so important to them.

• Jay Bookman is deputy editorial page editor. His column runs Monday and Thursday.

[BGS99]

Originally Posted by JPD

You could just as easily say "Crystal Meth isn't dangerous. PEOPLE are."

That's where the ideological difference between most people is. Personal responsibility. All to often we want to point to an object as the reason bad things happen. Drugs, Guns, Steroids, Alcohol made a someone do something bad. If you take away that object, would the incident still have happened? Maybe, Maybe not. If you change the decision that person makes would it still happen? Yes, things are inherently dangerous. Meth labs can blow up. Gun accidents happen. But, so do automobile accidents. I believe by taking all the objects away, you still havent dealt with the poor judgement and decisions made by actual people.

[RainyRainyDay]

Originally Posted by BGS99

That's where the ideological difference between most people is. Personal responsibility. All to often we want to point to an object as the reason bad things happen. Drugs, Guns, Steroids, Alcohol made a someone do something bad. If you take away that object, would the incident still have happened? Maybe, Maybe not. If you change the decision that person makes would it still happen? Yes, things are inherently dangerous. Meth labs can blow up. Gun accidents happen. But, so do automobile accidents. I believe by taking all the objects away, you still havent dealt with the poor judgement and decisions made by actual people.

This is where conservatives drive me crazy with their lack of principles. If you believe this kind of stuff, I want to see you voting in favor of full legalization of Sunday sales not just of alcohol, but drugs and prostitution too. Let the almighty guiding hand of free enterprise and personal responsibility determine where these things fit into our society. If you took this position, I wouldn't agree but I'd respect your ideological consistency.

As it is though, most conservatives don't seem to believe in their principles at all. They just want to have some things they happen to like (e.g. guns) but legislate to keep out of the hands of their neighbors some things they don't like (crystal meth). They couldn't care less about anyone's freedoms but their own.

[BGS99]

Originally Posted by RainyRainyDay

This is where conservatives drive me crazy with their lack of principles. If you believe this kind of stuff, I want to see you voting in favor of full legalization of Sunday sales not just of alcohol, but drugs and prostitution too. Let the almighty guiding hand of free enterprise and personal responsibility determine where these things fit into our society. If you took this position, I wouldn't agree but I'd respect your ideological consistency.

As it is though, most conservatives don't seem to believe in their principles at all. They just want to have some things they happen to like (e.g. guns) but legislate to keep out of the hands of their neighbors some things they don't like (crystal meth). They couldn't care less about anyone's freedoms but their own.

Seems to me that putting the emphasis on personal responsibility is a principle. But I guess its more of a conservative vs liberal thing for you.
Hey, I'm all for Sunday alcohol sales and legal drugs and prositution.
You want to get out of a deficit? End the money waisted on the war on drugs and tax the sales of it. Same thing with prositution.
For what its worth, I dont own a gun or do drugs or even drink for that matter.
Am I still conservative enough for you?