The Tennessean Implies Arrest Equals Conviction

As part of The Tennessean's continued war on handgun permit holders, it is now implying that if a person is arrested for a crime, he should be treated like he is convicted of a crime for purposes of obtaining a handgun permit. They went to great lengths to find a thug who had pled down his crimes and appeared to be a thug (and maybe he is). They want to act like there are all kinds of loopholes being exploited.

In this country, people are still innocent until proven guilty, at least unless the person is someone that the left wants to villify. If the state's evidence was strong that this guy was a felon, they would have prosecuted him and won. It wasn't, so they didn't. Of course, if the gun permit were out of the equation, The Tennessean would likely be complaining that he was treated too harshly based on the accusations against him, was a victim of racial profiling or was somehow otherwise victimized by an unfair system.

They also bring up an instance where the state was not notified to revoke a permit when its holder was put in jail for years. It apparently never occurred to them that the court may have well decided that it was a pointless exercise, considering the criminal would be unable to carry his weapon while in prison and that his permit would expire long before he was eligible for parole. It doesn't matter, as they would rather throw the baby out with the bathwater because of a few screwups which are largely irrelevant because the person who is bent on using firearms in a criminal fashion will not be deterred by the lack of a handgun permit in any event.