Prohibited Items
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· Weapons including, but not limited to: Knives, explosives, stun guns, handcuffs, brass knuckles, sticks, clubs, batons, martial arts instruments, pepper spray, tear gas, etc. Guests found in possession of such items will be asked to remove the items from park property or dispose of them. (bold, italics, and underline mine)
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How do I know they were lying? Gun rights advocate Jeffry Smith attended the event carrying his firearms openly to show everyone WEBN's deliberate misinformation, that they lacked the authority to ban weapons in Ohio's public parks. He had no issues with law enforcement officers that clearly saw his weapons.
Here is WEBN's Contact page in case they can provide any clarification on what happened. Perhaps it was all just a snafu, a misprint? That could be believable if they had not done this numerous times before.
So why are these deceptions fed to the public by event organizers and the media, with a blind eye from local governments?
Because it is not against the law for them to LIE to you about whether weapons are truly prohibited or not. They want to TRICK you into leaving your guns in your vehicles to be at risk of theft, because they know they cannot ban you from carrying them into the public parks at these events.
No matter how you feel about weapons in public places and at public events, you need to be told the truth. Truth matters.
What if you are totally opposed to being near weapons (though that might be difficult to accomplish since most carriers of weapons conceal them), and plan to attend a "gun free" event just because the website said weapons are prohibited, only to be SURPRISED to see peaceful carriers with their holstered firearms in plain view once you get there?
There are at least a couple of large events in Atlanta coming up soon at a public park where lawful carriers are AUTHORIZED to carry at under Georgia law. To be honest, I don't know if their websites are window dressing misinformation, or if they mean to really keep out lawful carriers of guns.
To my knowledge NO ONE in the news media has asked that question of them. If they decline comment, that should logically be a clue one way or the other, but I couldn't predict it 100% either way.
Another, but smaller example was Atlanta Reggae in the Park, held at Piedmont Park last month. "Weapons of any kind" were banned according to the website, but there was no screening for any prohibited items, and I have it on good information that at least one citizen openly carried a holstered handgun there, also with no issues from police.
I have no plans to attend the large events alluded to above, no plans to sue them, and no plans to threaten to sue them. I will leave that decision up to anyone that is not allowed to enter the park for the events just for being lawfully armed, or entered but were forced to first disarm.
Perhaps you faithful readers of mine could ask your TV and radio news media if they will get to the bottom of whether websites purporting to ban weapons at events in public parks in Georgia, Ohio, and other states where citizens are authorized to carry them, mean to actually ban them or not.
Shouldn't the truth be brought to light? Shouldn't event promoters have the decency to stop lying to us and give us a clear and honest answer?
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