No Smoking. You see the signs everywhere - EVERYWHERE! A new one went up in my pharmacy - which is way in the back of the store. NO SMOKING it says in bolded capital letters. As though there might be some question about it.
I live in PA. Smoking has been outlawed in all buildings other than homes. Stores, restaurants, retail shops, malls, diners, office buildings, sporting arenas, etc., etc., etc. Even bars were included in the ban, but they can apply for a special exemption and those who get it usually have a sign out front that says "Smoker Friendly" on it. I'm a smoker (hoping to quit - again - this weekend) and I'm cool with the ban. We go outside, we smoke, we come back in. No big deal. Even in winter, when it can get bitterly cold and windy - no big deal.
If you light up inside though, you could be prosecuted. And the signs are on the front doors everywhere.
But I have a very serious question. Meet me below the Kospaghetti where we're going to hammer this out.
I can't smoke in the department store, and/or the mall (a place I try to avoid at all costs), and/or your office building. But can I bring my 9mm Glock 19 in with me? I can kill you much faster with that than with my second-hand smoke. Is my gun welcome to enter with me at a sporting event, a department store, and/or your office? Usually not.
Can I walk into your non-smoking home with a lit cigarette? No? Fine.
Can I walk into your home with my gun concealed somewhere on me?
No? If not, WHY not? You don't approve of me carrying deadly force of that level into your home, your office, the store, the game? Then why is there no sign? Point of Fact before I go any farther with this: I don't really own a gun. Never have. Probably never will.
I've made a few phone calls.
It turns out that (according to a very nice lady named Catherine at Wal*Mart HQ) you are not permitted to carry a firearm into a Wal*mart - concealed or not. This policy also applies at their headquarters building.
The same goes for most government buildings - federal and state and local - especially courtrooms.
A call to Sears revealed that Sears prohibits guns in its Sears and K-Mart stores and in its headquarters offices.
The security office of my nearest mall says that the official policy of the mall is that firearms are not permitted on the premises.
I'm getting the feeling that firearms are not welcome in many more places than I thought. They're not welcome to be carried into my home. This is a policy that my wife and I discussed, agreed upon, and have enforced in the past. What many folks aren't making the connection with is the idea that your Second Amendment rights to keep and bear a firearm cease to exist at my property line. And in a courtroom, and many, many other places.
I'm going to take a leap of faith and put forth the idea that you probably aren't allowed to carry a loaded handgun in just about every office building in most major cities. Perhaps this won't apply in places like Texas and Oklahoma and Wyoming, but it is probably the case in New York, Boston, Chicago, Seattle, San Fran, LA, Philadelphia, and Atlanta.
What I am not seeing in many of these places is . . . a sign. You'll see plenty of "NO SMOKING" signs stuck to just about every entry door in America. They look much like this:
LINK to a Google Image Search
With so many places (including my house) where guns are not welcome, why is it that I see so very few "No Guns" signs? How many "NO GUNS" signs has anybody else here actually seen?
They should look like any of these:
LINK to another Google Image Search
What's nice about that Google Image Search is that you'll find plenty of public-domain images that you can download, save, print, manipulate, etc. And you can put them where you feel they'd be best displayed on or around your home. Remember, though, that just by prohibiting others to carry guns into your home - you're not prohibiting yourself from having/owning your own gun. All you're doing is telling others that they have to leave their shootin' irons elsewhere when they come for a visit.
I'm considering taking a couple of these "NO GUNS" signs to a local print shop and having them print a few as window clings for the inside of my storm door and as peel-and-stick clear stickers for the inside of other doors. I'm going to see if I can get a few stuck onto the entry doors of the mall and many other places. If the policy is "No Guns", then they should display that, shouldn't they?
I thought for just a few seconds about getting a bunch of these printed up as stickers for the inside of a glass door and offering them to you folks, but realized that the effort would probably be a mess for me. Besides, there are print shops in lots of places and you can buy them on-line, I'm sure.
Perhaps if we can get these things stuck to bunches and bunches of doors across America, it may (or may not) lessen the number of guns we have to worry about in our daily lives, but it will likely embolden the general public into coming to their own conclusion of where guns DO belong - in the home, if anywhere at all. This is something that might help get the conversation on gun control moving in the right direction and with some force behind it.
Anybody else like the idea?