Heller goes to the airport
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In this latest installment of “Heller goes to…”, in which we follow the zany adventures of Heller v. D.C.*, the lovable Supreme Court case, as he makes his way through the country, Heller decides to go to the airport to see what the fuss is all about.
He decided to take a trip to Atlanta, GA - one of the nation’s busiest airports. After all, he now has a right to be possessed. It’s in the Constitution and what better place to exercise one’s Constitutional rights than an airport!
In addition, the state of GA had just passed a law making it legal to carry a concealed weapon while on public transportation and other fine places where other people congregate, so they can all compare their pieces and be happy.
So off went good old Heller to the airport:
City officials in charge of the airport declared it a “gun-free zone” when a law allowing people to carry guns on public transit and other places took effect Tuesday. Gun rights supporters, including a state legislator who helped pass the law, quickly filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the designation.
Rep. Tim Bearden, a Republican from Villa Rica and a former police officer, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Bearden sponsored the state law.
He had told a newspaper he would carry a concealed weapon to the airport Tuesday when he picked up his family. But he told The Associated Press by telephone Tuesday morning, “There will be no reason for any confrontation at the airport.”
The airport authorities were naturally upset, since the country has been in a state of orange alert for the last 7 years and airports lead to planes and well…you know the rest.
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin said citizens can’t bring guns into the terminal and argued that airports remain attractive targets for terrorism.
Allowing citizens to carry firearms “would create an environment that would endanger millions of people,” she said.
So let me get this straight. I have to endure hours of long lines at airports and invasive and intrusive searches and answer all sorts of ridiculous questions so we can be “safe”, but all of that security takes a back seat to some yahoo who doesn’t feel manly enough without his gun tucked in his shoulder holster (or wherever the kids are carrying it these days) and has to carry it to the damn airport?
It’s also quite an interesting argument to make - that an airplanes are “public transportation”.
Oh you silly Heller, you! Always getting into crazy situations!
*Yes, I realize that this GA law is not a product of Heller. I am using the Heller name as a surrogate for the right to bear arms and any and all state laws designed to make such possession legal
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Eh, there’s nothing special about the airport other than the planes. As long as the bad guys can’t get the weapons on the planes, who cares whether people have guns at the airport?
It’s not much of a right-to-carry if every other place is off-limits. The airport is public property, like just like the bus stations, streets, and sidewalks.
And everyone seems to forget that it is already legal for citizens to transport firearms on airplanes (secured, unloaded, and with the right TSA paperwork). Presumably there are already folks transporting firearms into airports to check them as baggage. As far as I know, there’s never been an actual crime committed by some hunter or collector using this system. (There have been a few folks bagged on possessory violations when their flight got diverted and they had to pick up their firearm from baggage claim in an unexpected location for which they didn’t have the right paperwork.)
You seem to assume that gun owners are yahoos who view their firearm as a substitute for their reproductive organs. Substitute that for, say, a domestic violence victim who carries for her self-defense and is picking up a relative at the airport and is concerned that her ex might coonfront her in the parking lot, or when she gets home. (Yes, in many states one can leave an unattended firearm secured in a car when going into a prohibited area like a court or school, but I consider it a darned bad idea to leave unattended guns around, even if locked up.) Or someone meeting someone at the airport who has to travel their by public transit at a little-traveled hour and is realistically concerned about crime enroute.
As a defense attorney, I’ve had several clients who’ve been arrested, prosecuted, and jailed for innocent violations of firearms licensing laws — I would very much like to have fewer of those clients by making the licensing laws relatively simple and common-sense.
Gideon, please. Envision yourself a citizen, and not a Subject. DC v. Heller won’t bother you as much that way.
Thanks for including your picture. I’m sure that wasn’t meant to represent me. Truth is, pal, although I’ve had the license to carry since 1994, I really didnt start carrying on a regular basis until the Brian Nichols affair of March 2005. Those 3 days of uncertainty, brought home the fact that ultimately, the state will not bear ultimate responsibility for my safety, I will. And since the airport is not secure before the checkpoint, you are deluding yourself if you assume your safe there.
In a perfect world, every gun owner would be responsible, have the proper training, and there would be accidental discharges, shots ricocheting and hitting the wrong person in a confrontation, etc…
But that is not the case and when guns are allowed in more and more places, and in the hands of more and more people, more easily, the numbers of accidental shootings, and the amount of firearms-related crime will increase…even if the statistics and percentages remain the same.
Heller drove home the point that handguns are viewed by us as the weapon of choice for self defense - in one’s home - and we have an absolute right to possession there. We have the castle doctrine and now we have Heller.
All the courts will do is go back, review the current laws, and balance one’s personal right to firearm possession with the needs of public safety. They will be hesitant, in my opinion, to invalidate much of the laws that are already in place limiting possession.
To think that Heller will drastically alter the landscape, and that we will be seeing armed vigilantes riding city buses and roaming the streets in hunt for whatever… that’s not going to happen (excepting Texas of course)…
There’s some interesting material on law enforcement and the reluctance of police officers to use deadly force, even when clearly legally justified in doing so.
“the instructor of an FBI National Academy course on the use of force asked his students (police executives from across the country) about cases where they could have legally shot someone but did not. Over a 3-year period, 90 percent of these students responded that they had refrained from using deadly force when they had the legal right to shoot. That is not to say that these officers would not have used deadly force. The discussions that always followed this question generally ended with the officers agreeing that they would wait until the last possible moment before using deadly force.
A newspaper study in Portland, Oregon, reported similar findings. For a 2-year period, 28 percent of the officers said that they refrained from using deadly force, even though they had the legal right to employ it, once; another 28 percent did so twice; and 8 percent acted in this manner on three occasions. In another study, 36 of the 50 officers assaulted reported that they had previous encounters where they could have legally used deadly force but did not because they felt that they did not have to. The average number of times the officers could have used deadly force and chose not to do so was four.
(for article and footnotes see:)
http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/2008/march2008/march2008leb.htm#page7
I haven’t seen anything to show that folks who lawfully carry concealed are, in general, any less cautious than police about when to use force. They may be more so — the public can retreat from danger. And it doesn’t have to close with dangerous folks to arrest them.
For the most part, accidental discharges in public places are rare — they are most likely to happen in places where the gun owner is loading or unloading the firearm (generally at home), practicing dry-firing what he/she thinks is an unloaded weapon (again, usually at home), or the trigger gets caught on something while the weapon is being holstered. There’ve been a number of states studied who have enacted shall-issue laws and other statutes increasing concealed carry — anyone have any cites showing a significant increase in accidental discharges in public?
If the firearm is being used for lawful self-defense, then, yes, there is a risk of one or more shots missing or overpenetrating (going thru the aggressor). Most of those shots end up harmlessly striking hard surfaces. A few do, tragically, hit bystanders. Happens to police now and then, likely happens to citizens as well — tho I haven’t found any data yet on this point.
Every time a state expands its concealed carry laws, there’s some doomsayers who trot out the usual lines about Wild West, armed vigilantes, etc. — and usually, a year or so later, there’s a short press story that, nope, didn’t happen … again. I expect the same will be true of Heller.
…would be no accidental discharges, no shots ricocheting…
Sorry, long day at work…forgot to re-read my paragraph
Before I reply to the substantive portion of your comment, I want to say: welcome back! It’s been a while since you commented here.
Thanks for the welcome… I’ve been busy at work (totally unrelated to law) and thought I’d drop by again. Always interesting commentary and so much to learn…