THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 22, 1996 TAG: 9603220651
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
Georgia Gov. Zell Miller has vetoed a bill that would have let lawmakers and other state officials carry concealed weapons in public places, including the Capitol.
The everyday world is becoming an armed camp. We used to play cops and robbers; now the game is in earnest.
The bill's sponsor said lawmakers need to be able to protect themselves against ``crazy people out there.''
Doesn't he realize the people out there regard some of the people in there, where he is, as fit for commitment?
In fact, that very bill would seem to qualify its sponsor for testing.
Notice, I said ``some'' of the people in there. In our Virginia General Assembly are many who are every bit as sane as I am.
Oops! Did you spray the breakfast table with coffee upon reaching the end of that sentence?
The bill won final passage Monday in the feverish closing session of the Georgia legislature.
Gov. Miller didn't even know about the concealed concealed-weapons measure until The Associated Press asked him if he intended to sign the bill.
Miller didn't sign, which suggests he isn't interested in re-election. Enough gun nuts are in the electorate to resent the governor's sensible veto and make the race close.
Virginia's law should be amended to let only women carry a hidden gun. Nearly always they are the victims of carjacking, molestation, battering, mugging, burglary, theft.
I can't honestly say they don't deserve keeping protection at hand.
Although women are considered overly emotional in being sensitive to an injustice, they also generally are cooler, more rational than are most men in taking action.
Not a week passes but what some lunkhead male gets out of a car waving a no-longer-concealed gun in the face of another driver who cut him off in traffic or beat him out of a parking place.
This is serious not-to-be-borne stuff, challenging a man's vanity that way on the highway!
In the news this week was a story of an angry driver who, when crowded in his lane by another, took forthright action.
He leaped out of his car, gun in hand, whereupon the other motorist pulled his concealed weapon and promptly shot him.
If Virginia legislators lack the perspicacity - you have no idea the pleasure it gives me to use the first word I ever looked up - to confine the right to women, they should decree that anyone carrying a concealed firearm shall not draw it except on another person so armed.
That would lead to many a stand-off in the street and increase this society's resemblance to the Old Wild West and reduce markedly the number of concealed weapons. by CNB