There’s a bloke who has been sending me daily emails about this new open carry law. He’s aghast. I can’t tell from the email address who the chap is. At first I thought it was Wick using an anonymous account due to the number of David Bowie allusions and references to “friends in Europe,” but Wick says it’s not him. I suspect it must be a food critic or a museum director. Anyway, I thought I’d share his latest email and then follow it up with a question:
This is a serious and simple amendment to the open-carry caveat about displaying the sign for restaurants that don’t allow guns.
The establishment should have the right to opt out (as it does) but should be able to do so in whichever manner it feels most appropriate. The most dignified thing would be a simple and discrete verbal refusal by the proprietor. If someone turns up in flip-flops and a T-shirt, stinking of moonshine, at, say, Abacus, the owner says simply, “I’m sorry, madame. You’re not dressed appropriately for our establishment. We can’t let you in. This is our house policy.” (Although there’s always the possibility the woman might retort in comedy slurred speech, “My good man, I’ve just come from the DMA Art Ball, where one has donated a considerable sum of money. Please seat me at my usual table, and bring one one’s chicken-fried-chicken au boeuf.”)
The Ritz in London — until recently at least — will turn you away if you’re wearing jeans. Doesn’t matter if they’re by Commes de Garcon and cost $1,000 or if you’re a Saudi sheik or Madonna. If you’re wearing denim, you don’t get in. It’s the Ritz, not the stock show at Fort Worth. (Now that London is turning to shit, you can probably wear denim at the Ritz by now. You can probably be packing heat, as well, if you own a big enough hedge fund).
So, if you’re brandishing a .45 and looking like a complete moron or like an extra from Brokeback Mountain or a militiaman from Oregon, you’re simply told at the door you’re not allowed in, and we have the right to refuse. It’s house policy. “Sorry, sir, but there are other restaurants where you might feel more comfortable and understand the menu — like in Oklahoma. Have a nice day!”
How hard would that be?
Putting a sign in the window is like advertising just how stupid Texas is and how — statewide, at least — it’s going backward, not forward. None of this open carry stuff has any thing to do with liberty. It has everything to do with willfully childish retrograde nonsense. It’s bad enough we’ve got guns here, but we don’t have to see them all the time. I mean, if I were forced to make a compromised statement, I’d say, Okay, so you insist you have to have your gun in the same way that we men all have a penis. But like a penis, the idea is that you wear it on the inside. It’s more civilised this way. If my friends come over from Europe, I don’t want them to have to see everyone’s junk hanging out.
I’m quite sure I speak for many people when I say this.
And so here’s my question. It’s the one I posed to the bloke who wrote me the above email. Have you seen a single gun? I’m not talking about some open-carry advocate on the TV news who straps on his gun just so he can make a point. I mean, have you been out and about and seen an actual carrier openly carrying? Because I have not. I share the emailer’s general sentiment about guns. But I’ll have a hard time getting worked up till I start seeing pistols everywhere.
