Do you carry in restaurants?
(While normally I am a strict advocate of concealed carry over open carry, due to its tactical advantages and ability to mitigate people ‘freaking out,’ in jurisdictions that it is legal, open carry in restaurants is a viable option)
Luby’s
In perhaps one of the worst mass murder incidents in US history, 35-year-old George Pierre “Jo Jo” Hennard crashed his Ford Ranger through the front of a Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas and shot 43 people that he had never met before, then proceeded to take his own life. One survivor of this incident, Dr. Suzanna Hupp, regretted that she did not have her gun with her that day for the rest of her life due to restrictive gun laws that prevented it.
Luby’s Cafeteria Massacre survivor Dr. Suzanna Gratia Hupp testifying to Congress on why good Americans obeying bad gun laws leads to death and suffering.
Not isolated
Besides Lubys, there are other instances that occur regularly across the country in restaurant.
In 2011, without cause a local man shot 12 at an IHOP in Carson City, NV, opening fire on a group of National Guardsmen as they ate their meal.
In Chicago recently, a ski-mask clad attacker opened fire on three men in a local eatery.
In another recent case an off-duty police officer was forced to shoot a man following a disturbance in a restaurant after the suspect went to his car, got a gun, and aimed it at the cop.
Expanded laws
In the Luby’s incident in 1991, concealed carry was at its infancy in the United States with few who did so. Today there are more than 8-million ccw holders nationwide and this number is rising every day.
This had led many states to allow legal concealed carry in restaurants (and in bars) with certain caveats.
Kentucky’s state senate just last week ok’d a bill that would allow concealed carry in bars. This follows a recent law implemented in South Carolina that allows CCW holders to carry in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol as long as they do not partake themselves.
According to most accounts, some 40+ states current allow legal concealed carry in one form or another.
And in my state, when I’m out to eat I have a passenger along for the ride quietly inside the waistband of my 4 o’clock position. You can recognize me.
I’m the guy with my back against the wall.
