Anti-gun Alabama Democrat calls state's new gun laws "crazy," threatens repeal

I’d find Alvin Holmes (D-Montgomery) more credible if he was vaguely coherent.

Rep. Alvin Holmes, D – Montgomery, called the state’s new gun law that expanded the right of individuals to carry firearms openly, “crazy.”

“We can’t make Alabama the wild wild west” Holmes said during an interview Tuesday. “That’s why I filibustered it and that’s why I voted against it.”

Holmes officially filed a bill for the 2014 Regular Session to repeal the new law.

Alabama’s new gun law took effect on August 1. Besides the open carry expansion, the law also allows employees of private companies to take their guns to work with them and leave them in their car, unloaded, and separate from the ammunition.

“We need to do more to take guns off the streets” Holmes said. He argued that there is too much crime in Alabama, especially in African-American communities, and the state must do more to take guns off the streets.

Rep. Holmes said he expects there to be some bipartisan support for his bill because many lawmakers “caught hell when they returned to their districts” after the Regular Session ended back in May.

Rep. Mike Hubbard, R – Auburn, the Speaker of the Alabama House of Representatives, released a statement making it clear that he wouldn’t support a repeal of the gun law.

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While open carry might tactically be a mistake—off-duty cops carry concealed for a reason—there is no evidence whatsoever that open carry has ever led to more violence in jurisdictions in which it has been implemented. After all, criminals down’t carry their weapons openly, for fear of drawing the attention of law enforcement.

Holmes instead seems to be guilty of advocating what he “knows” to be true… which apparently isn’t much.

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