Progress: Restaurant carry bill SB 1113 passes Senate

The Senate website is (obnoxiously) usually a day behind on bill status, but word is that SB 1113 passed yesterday. It's now headed for the House.

SB 1113 is what the hoplophobes have called the "guns in bars" bill and what the rest of us might as well call the "lunch at Chipotle" bill, allowing concealed-carry permit holders to carry in alcoholic beverage-selling restaurants so long as they do not consume alcoholic beverages, and placing the burden on restaurants that object to this to post conspicuous signs.

We can complain about open carry being left out--I carry openly to and from the range--and the provision prohibiting one from consuming any alcoholic beverages at a restaurant while carrying is overkill. (Drunkenness and having a glass of wine are two rather different things for those of us who weigh more than, say, eighty pounds.) But this is clear progress. The only real "hole" left in our right to carry in Arizona is the universities. (That is a major hole, meaning many pedestrian and cycle commuters, including most PhD students, are effectively prohibited from carrying on their way to and from work!)

According to Senate staffer Karen Winfield's e-mail announcement, the vote is as follows:

N ABOUD
Y AGUIRRE
N ALLEN C
Y ALLEN S
Y ALVAREZ
Y BURNS
N BURTON CAHILL
N CHEUVRONT
N GARCIA
Y GORMAN
Y GOULD
Y GRAY C
Y GRAY L
NV HALE
Y HARPER
Y HUPPENTHAL
N LANDRUM TAYLOR
Y LEFF
N LOPEZ
N MCCUNE DAVIS
Y MELVIN
N MIRANDA
Y NELSON
Y PATON
Y PEARCE R
Y PIERCE S
NV RIOS
N TIBSHRAENY
Y VERSCHOOR
Y WARING

Not exactly a party-line vote, showing that the Democrats are coming out of the Stone Age on RKBA, little by little. Note the "Yes" votes from Amanda Aguirre and Manny Alvarez. Republican RKBA supporters intending to vote in next year's primaries might also want to note the "No" votes from Jay Tibshraeny and Carolyn Allen.

I'd have liked to have seen how Rebecca Rios, reputedly sympathetic to last year's (failed) effort to legalize campus carry, would have voted. Gun ownership doesn't correspond precisely to a "yes" vote; Paula Aboud, who has publicly acknowledged having a CCW permit, voted "no." Always strange to see one voting against one's own rights. I'd put it between being a homosexual Republican and being a wealthy Socialist.