Hot Springs AR: County Officials Restore Carry rights for County Workers

Garland County Courthouse, Arkansas

Garland County, Arkansas, has restored the right to bear arms to County employees.

Political subdivisions across the country are restoring the rights of their workers to defend themselves with effective tools.  As the right to keep and bear arms has been incrementally restored across the nation, city, county and state employees are having restrictions on their rights removed.  From nwaonline.com:

The Garland County Quorum Court voted Monday night to allow county employees with concealed-carry permits to take firearms to work.

Justices of the peace defeated repeated motions to give the plan more consideration before voting 9-3 in favor of it. Justices of the Peace Denise Marion, Dave Reagan and Ellen Varhalla voted against the ordinance.

Garland County is the latest political subdivision to do so in a nationwide trend.
Counties in Georgia, Virginia, Kansas, North Carolina, Michigan and Texas have lifted similar restrictions in the last four years, a trend I wrote about six months ago.

One of the officials voting against restoring the right to be armed asked about the message that was being sent.

"What message are we sending citizens who conduct business at county offices when they're served by an armed clerk or elected official?" Reagan read from a prepared statement. "Will we post signs at county offices warning taxpayers they'll be served by an armed employee?

"We are a modern, civilized society, not the lawless Wild West of the 1800s."

The citizens conducting business can already be legally armed.  That is the common predicate to removing the restrictions from government employees.

The message being sent is that we are a nation of laws and limited government, and that in the United States, the government is the servant of the people, instead of the other way around. If Mr. Reagan wishes a different message, he can start working on the repeal of the Second Amendment. 

When governments do not trust the people with arms, they are sending the message that we have regressed to the tyrannical governments of the past, where people have no rights, other than those the rulers allow them to have.

Free societies have no problem trusting their people with arms.  Societies that govern from the top down do.

©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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