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Your article [“Appetite for destruction,” Oct. 23] mixes facts with fiction and a sprinkling of uninformed opinions. I may not agree with certain opinions, but amongst my co-workers I am alone in my support for an independent, liberal-biased (where liberal usually means the unvarnished truth) paper.
Your seventh paragraph gets it right, that House Bill 937 prohibits a person carrying a firearm from drinking on-site. Thus anyone with a weapon, open carry or concealed, is not allowed by law to consume alcohol … As a non-drinker myself, I accompany my family to local Chapel Hill restaurants, and my adult children and spouse are free to have a glass of wine or beer with their meal, as I never drink (actually due to a medical condition). However, the campaign to bar concealed weapons in Chapel Hill now eliminated any desire to frequent several great restaurants for dinners, Christmas parties or celebration meals with out-of-town visitors. Thanks for the listing of area restaurants that now ban all weapons; I hope that they read this and know they lost four customers in one family due to one sober Second Amendment-rights supporter.
I hope to never need to use my right to protect myself or my family, or even a total stranger in Chapel Hill who may be in harm’s way, but I want that constitutional right upheld in my little town. As any holder of a concealed carry permit knows, we are the good guys. We are educated in the law, photographed, fingerprinted, our background investigated, with personal references required, pay huge fees to be approved, and are usually unseen, unheard. The little time I have for activism is to spot a merchant with a “no concealed weapons” sign. Then I simply place a weapon in its holster and walk in. An open carry weapon is not banned by a concealed weapons ban.
Warren J. Harding, Chapel Hill
