It's open season for debate over concealed carry

Published April 11, 2002


Should law-abiding citizens be allowed to carry concealed firearms in Illinois, as they are in most other states? The question is again before lawmakers in Springfield, and it gets to the heart of the gun-control debate.

Those in favor say a concealed-carry law will make ours a safer society. Opponents, who block it every year, say it will make life more dangerous.

To probe these positions, I've invited gun-rights advocate John Birch, president of Oak Brook-based Concealed Carry Inc., and Thomas Mannard, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, into the Rhubarb Patch. The Rhubarb Patch is this column's occasional feature in which a debate begins in the newspaper and continues on the Internet.

More at linked URL:

[url]http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0204110207apr11.column?coll=ch i%2Dnews%2Dcol[/url]

And continued at:
[url]http://ericzorn.com/rhubarb/concealedcarry/[/url]

Figures, those hoplophobes think that if they regulate law abiding citizen's ownership of firearms, that SOMEHOW it will do something to stave off the criminals.  

It's so fuvking annoying that they can't see the error of their logic.  To you and I here, it's just common sense.  

I wish we could just export those a$$holes to California, and force it's secession from the union.  Let them do what they want in their own little dream world...