John Litz - at it again

[Tim Nunan]

This was in Representative Litz’ monthly article (4/11/2010) in the Morristown Citizen Tribune:

“Another very interesting bill going through the Legislature now is House Bill-3125 by Rep. Todd from Memphis that makes further changes to the guns-in-bars bill. This legislation will take away the authority of the local governments to make the decision as to the whether they want to allow fire arms in bars. It still does allow restaurants and bar owners to be able to make a choice of whether or not to allow fire arms in establishments. It does, however, change the posting requirements. Instead of the international picture of a circle crossing out a firearm, a restaurant owner will have to post at each entrance the entire section of the Tennessee Code stating that the owner of this establishment prohibits the item in the circle. This notice will appear the same size as a legal pad (8 1/2 x 14) and will have to be posted at every entrance of the establishment.”

Those of us that have been following the laws can quickly identify the numerous false and misleading statements in Mr. Litz’ comments: (1) There has never been a local government option in the restaurant bill (he confused this with the park carry bill); (2) The “international picture of a circle crossing out a firearm” has never been an acceptable sign for banning firearms in any establishment. The wording has already been established in law; HB 3125 merely eliminates the phrase “or similar language” so that all signage is consistent.

Mr. Litz’ use of guns-in-bars is his attempt to muddy the issue since as a Representative he should know that there are no legal bars in Tennessee. The scary thing is that Litz wants to be Hamblen County mayor and is either ignorant of the law or is willing to misstate the law for political purposes.

I addressed so many anti-gun articles in the Citizen Tribune that most of my letters to the editors never get published. I urge Litz’ constituents (Hamblen county residents) to write the local paper and comment on the bias report from Representative Litz.