Beer in the Headlights

You could call it the Atlanta version of "High Noon."

Top city officials will announce Tuesday that despite a new state gun law that went into effect at midnight, they will have anyone carrying a weapon at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport arrested. The state lawmaker who sponsored the new gun law says if they do, the city will immediately be sued. And state Rep. Tim Bearden (R-Villa Rica) said the plaintiff in the lawsuit could be himself.

"I have a permit, and I have family I have to pick up at the airport tomorrow [Tuesday]," Bearden told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday. "I'll have one [a concealed weapon] with me at all times."

Airport General Manager Ben DeCosta said if Bearden shows up at the world's busiest airport with a gun, he'll be busted.

"I can identify him, and I'll have him arrested," DeCosta said Monday. "We're not fooling around. This is a post-terrorism environment."

The new law, which Bearden sponsored, permits licensed gun owners to carry concealed firearms in parks, on public transportation and in restaurants that serve liquor. The law takes effect Tuesday.

Federal law already bans guns past the security checkpoints at U.S. airports. The new state law, however, apparently would permit guns to be carried on the non-secure side of Hartsfield-Jackson by people who have gone through a background check and have been certified to carry a weapon. Licensed gun owners would be permitted to carry weapons on public transportation coming into the airport, its lobby and in restaurants outside the security checkpoints.

DeCosta said he will use the first day the new law takes effect to declare Hartsfield-Jackson a "gun-free" zone.

It goes beyond the airport, but at least the folks at MARTA had enough sense to know where they stand and decided back down.

Opponents, however, blasted the proposal, (to allow concealed carry on public transportation - TC) saying it has the potential to spark more violence than it stops. DeCosta wrote to Gov. Sonny Perdue asking him to veto the bill, and Mayor Shirley Franklin and MARTA officials publicly lambasted the idea. MARTA bus drivers gathered more than 1,000 signatures on petitions demanding bulletproof shields.

Wow. A whopping 1,0000 signatures.

Think about this for a moment: CCL holder have gone through background checks. They've proven to be law abiding citizens. And MARTA bus drivers, the intellectual juggernauts that they are, have demanded bulletproof shields to protect them from these folks. Never mind the gangsta thugs, some of whom are convicted felons, who have already violated the law by carrying on MARTA buses and trains.

There are two types of people who oppose law abiding individuals from carrying firearms; those who hold an irrational fear of firearms and those who wish to exert power over others.