History doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes; lessons from 2004 re: the gun issue.

[benEzra]

154. A point that is applicable to any other parking garage in any other place.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, to get an NC license, I had to pass a Federal background check, state background check, FBI fingerprint check, mental health records check, take a class on self-defense law and tactics, and pass a shooting qualification on a range, live fire. For those of us who have passed that bar, there is no rational basis to say that it's OK to carry when transiting to/from a bus-station parking garage or a train-station parking garage, but not an airport parking garage, when picking up a friend late at night or whatever.

Your position comes down to "I despise gun owners and especially carry license holders, and I want to screw with them as much as possible." Pragmatically, one downside of that approach is that it makes gun owners oppose even common-ground positions like carry licensure (if you want to know why Vermont-style permitless carry is spreading across the country, look back at how you treat carry licensure). Expressing contempt for background checks, training, and licensure undermines any common ground you might otherwise try to achieve on background checks, training, and licensure, doesn't it?

The other downside is that "I hold you in contempt and I don't want your kind in my country" is a bummer of a campaign message when 15+ million voters have carry licenses, and as the Attorney General of Virginia found out the hard way last year, a whole heck of a lot of them are Democrats. And the thing is, that contempt-signaling doesn't gain you *anything* in terms of violence reduction; of the 13,500 murder victims in the United States annually, approximately 0 were shot between airport parking garages and terminals by holders of carry licenses.

Here in NC, there are between 550,000 and 600,000 holders of carry licenses, or three times Clinton's margin of loss in NC. Obviously carry licensure wasn't the issue driving the train here (there are also ca. 2 million "assault weapon" and over-10-round magazine owners here, and 4-5 million gun owners total, out of 10.5 million), and the Dem governor we just elected is a strong supporter of carry licensure, but the whole "Licensed Killers" meme is still asinine and counterproductive nationally. The demographics and political trends are both running strongly in the opposite direction.