A new South Carolina concealed-weapons law turned Pete Matsko’s Clemson pub into a battlefield in the culture wars when he posted a sarcastic sign banning concealed weapons, says the New York Times. He was slammed with so many online attacks and harassing phone calls that he changed his number and started asking the police to open his mail.
Matsko, who owns two handguns, posted a sign reading, If you are such a loser that you feel a need to carry a gun with you when you go out, I do not want your business.” The sentence followed with a derogatory term used for an obnoxious person. An organization called Gun-Free Dining Tennessee, which formed after that state enacted a similar piece of concealed-weapons legislation in 2009, keeps a public list of restaurants that do and do not offer gun-free dining. Ray Friedman, a professor at Vanderbilt University who started the list, said, “I sympathize with the restaurant owners because they didn't choose to be in the middle of this, but this is where it is playing out.”