Handguns become pocket staple in Arizona on July 29

That’s right. On July 29, next Thursday, Arizona residents will be able to carry a handgun in their pocket or purse without a permit, nor do they have to have any safety training. Senate Bill 1108 was another piece of brilliant legislation by State Senator Russell Pierce, who also gave Arizona the anti-immigration bill SB1070. Sounds like Pierce is arming his white racist buddies to run Hispanics out of the state.

Arizona is one of only 3 states along with Alaska and Vermont to pass this bizarre kind of legislation, which became law on April 16, when signed by Governor Jan Brewer. Together, this duo, Pierce and Brewer, could eventually bring down the state with more similar legislative insanity.

Mesa, Arizona Police Chief, Frank Milstead—Russell Pierce’s home town is Mesa—thinks that people walking around with a gun in their pocket with no training is “disconcerting,” according to MSNBC. To gun control advocates it is probably sheer stupidity. Consider the training police officers go through, and then think of the jeopardy this bill places them in when protecting Arizona’s citizens.

Gun bubbas will wave their NRA flags about the 2nd Amendment and Constitutional rights to justify the legislation but it is just wrong. This law may be legal but common sense should tell all of us—and should have clued Brewer and Pierce before they passed it—that it makes absolutely no sense.

You can read other articles on gun control from this blog here.

How do you justify putting a handgun in the hands of just any individual who somehow legally or illegally acquired the weapon without at least making sure he or she knows how to use it? You don’t if you are a thoughtful, reasoning person. With lax laws controlling gun shows, this is yet just one more avenue for potential violence. Arizona is one of 33 states considered to be a “gun show loophole” state.

Most bars and restaurants in Arizona don’t allow gun toters, even though another absurd state law made that possible recently with a permit. Arizona likes to portray itself as a state of people who value their individual rights, passing laws like SB1070 and SB1108 to support those rights.

This concept can be taken too far, and in both of these bills that is the case.

Please visit my writing at Examiner.com for more on gun control.