Troubling Mixture of Guns, Bars

It was bound to happen. The result, fortunately, was not as serious as it could have been.

The mixture of guns and alcohol exploded at a Lynchburg restaurant Saturday night when a customer accidentally shot himself in the thigh with a concealed weapon. He faces three misdemeanor charges, according to Lynchburg police, including recklessly handling a firearm, willfully discharging a firearm in the city of Lynchburg and carrying a concealed handgun in a restaurant after consuming alcohol.

Police said the Forest man, who was treated and released at the hospital, did have a concealed weapon permit. But even with such a permit, those carrying concealed weapons in a bar or restaurant are not allowed to consume alcohol.

After years of controversy over the issue of guns and bars, the General Assembly earlier this year approved legislation — and Gov. Bob McDonnell signed it — that allows those with concealed weapons permits to carry guns into bars.

The bill never has made any sense.

Why? Because the mixture of alcohol with firearms is a deadly one. Guns and alcohol, plainly and simply, don’t mix.

The Virginia Senate sought to include a dash of safety in the bill by adding a measure that would make it a misdemeanor offense to consume alcohol in a bar or restaurant while carrying a concealed weapon. That led to a riddle around Capitol Square in Richmond about how you can spot the guy at the bar carrying a concealed weapon. He’s the one drinking club soda.

The customer at Waterstone Pizza was not drinking club soda. A bartender said he came in, “filled up his mug and placed it on the bar. The next thing you know, you hear a loud bang. I thought it was a champagne bottle at first,” she said.

There’s still a hole in the tile where the bullet pierced the floor after being discharged from the weapon carried in his front pants pocket.

Restaurant owners had lobbied against allowing concealed weapons in their bars because they didn’t want to have to deal with the potential for added danger in their establishments. They succeeded in getting a measure in the law that allows private restaurants to ban concealed weapons if they want.

Waterstone Pizza on Jefferson Street made its no-gun policy clear before the concealed weapons law became effective. Signs are posted outside the restaurant’s door making it clear that guns — concealed or otherwise — are not allowed inside.

 “I don’t think that alcohol and guns mix. I think it’s a dangerous combination,” Thomas Edgerton, general manager of the restaurant, told a local television station.

The incident raises anew the question of just why someone has to carry a weapon into a bar, even if he or she has a concealed weapons permit. It could hardly be much of an inconvenience for those carrying concealed weapons to leave the weapon in the glove box of his vehicle before entering a bar or restaurant.

Really, it’s no trouble. Certainly not compared with the trouble that could result if the weapon were pulled and fired in the bar — or even accidentally discharged in the bar, as was the case on Jefferson Street last Saturday night.