Arizona -- in the news over the summer for allowing gun-toters to attend presidential events -- has now passed a law allowing people to carry guns into bars. TPM has reported on 14 people in 3 separate Arizona incidents packing heat at political events - events that involved President Obama and Democratic representatives from the state.
The NRA-backed law, which takes effect today, allows those with a concealed weapons permit to bring guns into bars and restaurants. The new rules coincide with the Supreme Court announcement today that it will review a gun-control case, McDonald v. Chicago, which concerns whether state and local gun laws may be challenged under the Second Amendment.
The one stipulation that prohibits gun-toters from entering Arizona bars: if the establishment has a sign against them. So if there's a sign, you can't bring a gun in -- except there are enough loopholes to render the rule almost meaningless.
First, the signs have to be state-approved. And according to the AP:
A person would be exempt if the sign banning guns had fallen down, the person wasn't an Arizona resident, or the notice was first posted less than a month earlier.
That certainly isn't making bar owners in Arizona feel better.
Mark DeSimone, who owns the Hidden House Cocktail Lounge in Phoenix, told the AP even putting the signs up can hurt business: "It looks scary. It looks to somebody like, should I go in this place because they obviously have a problem with people bringing weapons in."
Meanwhile, the NRA's Western Region Director J.P. Nelson said "if a person starts drinking and gets in a shootout and kills someone, of course they're subject to criminal prosecution."
The guns-in-bars rule is especially striking in Arizona, where Chris Broughton made headlines last month when he was spotted carrying an assault rifle (AR-15) and pistol outside the VFW Convention Center in Phoenix. President Obama was speaking there at the time. Broughton attended a virulently anti-Obama sermon just the day before the event, where Pastor Steven Anderson prayed for the President to die. Broughton even said he agrees with the pastor.
He wasn't the only one carrying a gun at that Obama event: twelve people were packing heat that day in Phoenix, sort of a trend in Arizona. Someone dropped a gun at a town hall with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), and a pro-health reform activist brought a gun to an anti-reform demonstration near the office of Rep. Harry Mitchell (D-AZ).
There are 138,350 people in Arizona with concealed weapons permits. Travel writer and publisher Arthur Frommer said that he won't be traveling to the southwestern state anymore after all the political gun-toters of August. Arizona's new gun law may only harden the positions of those who feel similarly.

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traitorjoe
September 30, 2009 5:21 PM
Thank God I live in California. But if I ever go Arizona, I'm packing heat and drinking gallons of beer.
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rynato
September 30, 2009 7:48 PM in reply to traitorjoe
Yes, thank god you live in California. Please stay there.
For what it's worth, the lead to this article is WRONG.
Arizona -- in the news over the summer for allowing gun-toters to attend presidential events
Um, NO. Some douchebag with an AR-15 showed up OUTSIDE the presidential event. No state - including Arizona - tells the Secret Service what can and can't happen at presidential events. This guy was OUTSIDE the event. Not AT the event.
Please don't piss all over us Arizonans for what the idiots at the Legislature do. It's not like we were demanding this law, in fact we really just want them to find a way to balance the budget without slashing education.
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BrianSkuse
September 30, 2009 9:57 PM in reply to rynato
Patience, people. Darwin will sort 'em out in the long run.
A few more generations ought to do the trick.
Knuckleheads with guns will always find, and kill, each other. People with loaded guns in the house will kill members of their own families.
Let Darwin do his work.
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Linus_Too
September 30, 2009 10:02 PM in reply to rynato
Make a deal with you and the rest of your fellow Arizonans. YOU vote out the "idiots in [your] Legislature" and compel the new legislators to repeal this bone-headed gun law, and WE will stop, as you put it, "pissing" on you.
And YES, the "douchebag with [the] AR-15" was AT the event, outside the venue but AT THE EVENT — he didn't just happen upon the scene as a he cavalierly wandered around the city armed to the teeth.
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JohnW1141
September 30, 2009 5:37 PM
The last time they allowed this was before Wyatt Earp became Marshall of Tombstone, Az. Hey, maybe we'll soon have another shoot out at the O K Corral
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ohyeathatsright
September 30, 2009 5:52 PM
Arizona should adopt a new slogan: "Bringing the Wild back to the West!"
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DF
September 30, 2009 6:00 PM in reply to ohyeathatsright
Even in much of the old West you had to leave your guns on the edge of town.
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Nowukkers
September 30, 2009 6:13 PM in reply to ohyeathatsright
Or vice versa.
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Shrubbit
September 30, 2009 5:55 PM
Guns + Booze =
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DaveW
September 30, 2009 6:02 PM
I think they got it backwards -- too much of this reaching out shit. If they had real balls, they'd make it mandatory to be drunk before you can carry a gun. We'd lose a lot of Arizonans, but think of the national park!
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commie atheist
September 30, 2009 6:06 PM
Well, that's good to know. Seriously, do people like that realize how absurd they sound making a statement like that?
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fitley
September 30, 2009 6:21 PM
Or the other bar patrons could all choose up sides and shoot all the people involved in the dispute. This should be alright if the bars just put signs out front identifying them as Republican, inbred,racist,militia bars.
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Jaycal
September 30, 2009 7:32 PM in reply to fitley
Mandatory Eugenics requirement: bars that only allow in people without kids yet... remove them from the gene pool before they breed.
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synchronicity
September 30, 2009 6:24 PM
Great idea!
Arizona, a state I will no longer visit or drive-through.
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Former Federal Employee
September 30, 2009 6:34 PM
How I'd love to be an installer of metal detectors in Arizona right now.
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twirling fartknocker
September 30, 2009 6:36 PM
Arizona was the last state to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Fuckers.
By The Time I Get To Arizona
I'm countin' down to the day deservin'
Fittin' for a king
I'm waitin' for the time when I can
Get to Arizona
'Cause my money's spent on
The goddamn rent
Neither party is mine not the
Jackass or the elephant
20.000 nig niggy nigas in the corner
Of the cell block but they come
From California
Population none in the desert and sun
Wit' a gun cracker
Runnin' things under his thumb
Starin' hard at the postcards
Isn't it odd and unique?
Seein' people smile wild in the heat
120 degree
'Cause I wanna be free
What's a smilin' fact
When the whole state's racist
Why want a holiday F--k it 'cause I wanna
So what if I celebrate it standin' on a corner
I ain't drinkin' no 40
I B thinkin' time wit' a nine
Until we get some land
Call me the trigger man
Looki lookin' for the governor
Huh he ain't lovin' ya
But here to trouble ya
He's rubbin' ya wrong
Get the point come along
An he can get to the joint
I urinated on the state
While I was kickin' this song
Yeah, he appear to be fair
The cracker over there
He try to keep it yesteryear
The good ol' days
The same ol' ways
That kept us dyin'
Yes, you me myself and I'ndeed
What he need is a nosebleed
Read between the lines
Then you see the lie
Politically planned
But understand that's all she wrote
When we see the real side
That hide behind the vote
They can't understand why he the man
I'm singin' 'bout a king
They don't like it
When I decide to mike it
Wait I'm waitin' for the date
For the man who demands respect
'Cause he was great c'mon
I'm on the one mission
To get a politician
To honor or he's a gonner
By the time I get to Arizona
I got 25 days to do it
If a wall in the sky
Just watch me go thru it
'Cause I gotta do what I gotta do
PE number one
Gets the job done
When it's done and over
Was because I drove'er
Thru all the static
Not stick but automatic
That's the way it is
He gotta get his
Talin' MLK
Gonna find a way
Make the state pay
Lookin' for the day
Hard as it seems
This ain't no damn dream
Gotta know what I mean
It's team against team
Catch the light beam
So I pray
I pray everyday
I do and praise jah the maker
Lookin' for culture
I got but not here
From jah maker
Pushin' and shakin' the structure
Bringin' down the babylon
Hearin' the sucker
That make it hard for the brown
The hard Boulova
I need now
More than ever now
Who's sittin' on my freedah'
Opressor people beater
Piece of the pick
We picked a piece
Of land that we deservin' now
Reparation a piece of the nation
And damn he got the nerve
Another niga they say and classify
We want too much
My peep plus the whole nine is mine
Don't think I even double dutch
Here's a brother my attitude hit 'em
Hang 'em high
Blowin' up the 90s started tickin' 86
When the blind get a mind
Better start and earn while we sing it
Now
There will be the day we know those down and who will go
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rynato
September 30, 2009 7:51 PM in reply to twirling fartknocker
Fuck you. It was our governor Mecham (his very election was an accidental abomination in the first place) who repealed MLK Day, something most of us thought was idiotic.
You know, nobody ever owned any slaves here either, no blacks were ever lynched in Arizona, and we never have flown the Stars and Bars.
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twirling fartknocker
September 30, 2009 8:44 PM in reply to rynato
hey thanks. well, seeing that you weren't even a state until 1912, it's not so surprising arizona wasn't a slave state in, say, 1824. I don't think there were (m)any lynchings of blacks in hawaii or alaska either (so I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt on this one due to poor record keeping of such things at the time), but regardless that hardly reflects on the racism of Arizona today. and I'll beg your pardon on your claim about the stars and bars -- apparently a good number of folks in the New Mexico Territory (modern day New Mexico and Arizona) joined the confederacy in 1861.
funny how you can claim "most" of you think something is idiotic but you guys still have McCain who was one of the anti-MLK folks in Arizona. and, hey, it just might very well be a total accident that Arizona is over 85% white, and all those white folks who ran there in the last 20-30 years did so with honset intention of moving to a multi-cultural mecca only to be completely culture-shocked when they got there and saw mostly people like themselves. okay
or you could just admit it, that Arizona is the Idaho of the southwest
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cheesenstein
September 30, 2009 7:22 PM
Because alcohol and ammunition always combine for a good result.
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Mrs Panstreppon
September 30, 2009 7:24 PM
I live on Long Island, one of the most densely populated regions in the country, and this issue has never come up. Most of us are quite happy with our very restrictive gun laws and our murder rates show it.
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ManOmega
September 30, 2009 7:39 PM
That's a nice 1911.
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GammaUt
September 30, 2009 7:40 PM
Makes about as much sense as allowing texting or web browsing while driving.
Guns and booze don't mix ... I seem to remember reading that somewhere ... Ah yes, the NRA's guidelines on gun safety.
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Atlantajan
September 30, 2009 7:47 PM
Ironically, Wyatt Earp's group went after the Clantons partially because they brought guns into the town in violation of town law.
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fitley
September 30, 2009 8:31 PM
I have an idea for a new busisness. Have a stand outside of bars to rent guns by the hour to drunks who forgot theirs at home, or for tourists or visiting relatives. Who wants to go into a bar unarmed. Derringers $2 for the ladies. 44 magnums $10 for the dudes with little dicks.
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BrianSkuse
September 30, 2009 10:38 PM in reply to fitley
Excellent idea ! Seriously - this would be legal too, I am sure.
Mr LaPierre and his GUN-DEALER lobby will defend it to the end.
The gun laws are about commerce, people : the selling of guns at a profit.
When morals, or anything else, collide with commerce, commerce wins.
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Adrian Browne
September 30, 2009 9:12 PM
Now if we can legalize acid . . .
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johnnydoughey
September 30, 2009 9:23 PM
United States citizens own over 30% of the entire worlds gun supply.
It's only natural for a nation like us to legally open up new places for us to kill each other.... IMHO
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johnnydoughey
September 30, 2009 9:34 PM
United States citizens own over 30% of the entire worlds gun supply.
It's only natural for a nation like us to legally open up new places for us to kill each other.... IMHO
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Nylund
October 1, 2009 12:18 AM
Because there is nothing about murder that can't be undone with a little prosecution. I mean, its not like that person is going to be dead forever or anything.
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fitley
October 1, 2009 2:23 AM
This will be good for people who can't pass backround checks to get their own guns. They could bum a gun off of somebody like drunks bum cigarettes off of each other. "Hey bud, lend me your gun for a second... Bang,Bang. I'll give you a couple of bullets next time. Thanks ."
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fitley
October 1, 2009 2:30 AM
The guy with the AR-15 was in gun fantasy world essentially doing the equivalent of hanging his dick out. Nothing wrong with that in gun fantasy world.
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alexoc949
October 1, 2009 6:10 AM
It's not like they are going to check that people have license going into bars, so the riff raff among us can now freely stroll into bars packin heat. Note to self, stay out of AZ bars.
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capeJoe
October 1, 2009 8:23 AM
Will bartenders be selling firearms with cocktails?
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Veritas78
October 1, 2009 9:26 AM
Since bars are private property, isn't it up to the bar owner to determine if customers with guns are welcome?
This Arizona law is another assault by the state government on private property rights! Those commie fascist Arizona legislators!
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mjshep
October 1, 2009 10:46 AM
This an excellent law I fully support.
Think of all the deranged idiots who will now be killing each other, or getting killed, or going to jail for killing someone else. An effective way of culling the herd.
Now if we could only get the conservative, gun loving, right wing members of the Supreme Court to go to Arizona for a drink...
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theCleverBulldog
October 1, 2009 11:37 AM
You people are so myopic in your views on guns. Sometimes people like to go to bars/clubs and sometimes you have to park a good distance away, and sometimes in bad areas. So, you either leave your gun in the car, where it can be stolen, and walk unarmed through the bad neighborhood lat at night, you stay home, or you break the stupid law. I lived in Atlanta for several years, and most of the clubs are very close to bad areas, and you often have to park in places where it is not that safe. So the law forces you to stay home or be a helpless victim. That is just stupid.
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jace
October 1, 2009 2:05 PM
From the NRA Gun Safety Rules (http://www.nrahq.org/education/guide.asp)
Never use alcohol or over-the-counter, prescription or other drugs before or while shooting. Alcohol, as well as any other substance likely to impair normal mental or physical bodily functions, must not be used before or while handling or shooting guns.
If all legislators who supported this bill can be named in a civil liability suit when a bar shooting occurs, then I'll support it too. C'mon, legislators - put your money where your mouth is.
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The Reluctant Conspiracy Theorist
October 1, 2009 6:45 PM
Those carrying the weapons aren't allowed to drink alcohol.
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