Gun Free Zones in Your Hometown

                           by Jamie Spaulding on Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 7:25pm

       Friends the time has come to speak up. The Martin and Union City mayors and aldermen are going to try to ban the carrying of legal firearms by permit holders in local parks.

      We just beat this silliness on the state level and they are going to shove it down our throats locally. Let's stop this in it's tracks. Monday the Martin mayor and board of aldermen will have their meeting to consider this at 5:15 PM. The Union City Mayor and board are meeting Tuesday night. It has already passed informally in Martin, whatever that means. Weakley County permit holders need to be there. Solid citizens with carry permits need to remind city officials that killing sprees happen in places where the law abiding are, by law, unarmed.

      Someone also needs to remind them that permit holders are more law-abiding than the public at large. They need to be reminded, as well, that there may be liability issues at stake for the city should a permit holder suffer grave bodily injury or death at the hands of a criminal while disarmed by a city mandate.

     Here's a newsflash for the uninformed. Because of an improper reference in Tennessee Code Annotated, unless the park has the main entrances posted, the carrying of legal firearms by permit holders in city parks has been, if not legal, certainly not illegal for several years. The ban on firearms in parks and other public recreation areas (sec. 39-17-1311) specifically bans those arms listed in Sec. 39-17-1302a which are:
" (1) An explosive or an explosive weapon;
   (2) A device principally designed, made, or adapted for delivering or shooting an explosive weapon;
   (3) A machinegun;
   (4) A short barreled rifle or shotgun;
   (5) A firearm silencer;
   (6) A hoax device;
   (7) A switchblade knife or knuckles; or
   (8) Any other implement for infliction of serious bodily injury or death which has no other common lawful purpose."        Note here that handguns do have a common lawful purpose. The state proved this by issuing handgun permits to allow for self-defense.  So since posting became mandatory, if your parks have not been posted, people who know the law have already been carrying there for several years. Can anyone name one instance of trouble this has caused? Let's stop this garbage here and now. Gun Free Zones are an invitation for any maniac to come and slaughter.