Had a close call in Peppers supermarket in Deming today. Blissfully unaware, I wore my sidearm in, and loaded my shopping cart with onions, dried mangos, frozen seafood medley, and -- you guessed it -- beer. Kona Pipeline Porter and Red Hook ESB, to be precise. Took my shopping cart to the checkout area, and my old buddy Ernie, cop turned store manager, was manning an empty register. First thing he said after returning my greeting, was "I can't sell you the beer". "Why not?" I asked. He said it was illegal, and in fact, my being armed inside the store was illegal. I didn't believe it, but didn't want the SWAT team coming after me either, so I dropped it. Came in later without the pistol, after my ride picked me up, and got my beer. Once I got home, I looked it up, and seems I was right. And if there's a federal law against it, the New Mexico constitution seems to indicate that a federal agent would have to be on the premises to enforce it: "No municipality or county shall regulate, in any way, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms."
Anyway, I wasn't hauled off to Gitmo as the Peppers Terrorist, thank goodness. I get to continue living my crazy life of true freedom for another day, maybe.
I recounted the same incident on the Columbus Village Voice forum. You might want to check it out.
last updated 2009-05-24 11:59:02. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com