Seen in Slate‘s “Dear Prudence” column this week:
Q. Guns at a wedding: We hope my brother-in-law will attend our daughter’s wedding, but we fear that he will bring his handgun. He recently commented on social media that he will “never go anywhere without my gun on my person.” The invitations were sent before this comment was made. He has said that he plans to attend the wedding. (The wedding will be out of town, both for us and for my BIL, and is being held at a city park.) Should my husband speak to him? Should we write him a letter expressing our hope that he is present, but that his gun is not welcome? His sister has offered to talk with him as she, too, does not want him to bring a gun. She visited him recently and observed that even when attending his small, rural church he carries his gun at his waist in an unsecured holster. He’s just one of those people who doesn’t want anyone touching his guns. We really don’t want the presence of a gun to spoil our daughter’s wedding!
Who is this nutty uncle? (Could he possibly be the infamous “Florida Man?”) PRO TIP: If you don’t want “anyone touching [your] guns,” keeping them unloaded and locked in a safe is the best way to keep them out of other people’s reach. Walking around with a sidearm only puts your weapon within reach of other people.
What do you think Prudence will say to these haters of the Second Amendment? Go back to Mexico Afghanistan Iraq Egypt Saudi Arabia Iran if you don’t like our freedoms! How dare you try to impose your weak, liberal values on me? I refuse to be a victim! This wedding protected by Smith & Wesson!
No–Prudie’s answer is straight out of Miss Manners or Emily Post. Short answer even shorter: hosts of weddings are free to plan whatever kind of ceremony with whatever restrictions they like. Invited guests are free not to attend if they don’t like them:
A: It is a reasonable request to ask wedding guests not to bring guns to the ceremony. It should come from the bride- and groom-to-be, and needs no further justification than “We don’t want guns at our wedding; please don’t bring yours with you.” If your daughter would like you and your husband to back them up, you certainly should, but let them make the official request.
It seems insane that brides must be reminded that it is “reasonable” for them “to ask wedding guests not to bring guns to the ceremony.” I’ve never seen guns at a wedding. Even at a shotgun wedding I never saw an actual shotgun.
Some people are determined to take our historically safe and secure United States and ruin it for the rest of us. Gun nuts, anti-vaxxers, school voucher pushers, preppers–please withdraw from normal American society and let the rest of us enjoy nice things like weddings, playgrounds, and public schools.
Historiann 
I give up. I can’t say something germane without profanity.
Nothing can express my amazement at the society of stupid we have become.
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“Gun nuts, anti-vaxxers, school voucher pushers, preppers–please withdraw from normal American society and let the rest of us enjoy nice things like weddings, playgrounds, and public schools.”
SERIOUSLY.
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They are why we can’t have nice things.
Did you hear? Measles is back, big time, babies! I need to see about getting a booster MMR, or whatever they recommend.
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… it may be illegal in our state for us to make such a request unless it’s the church or the state capitol building (and I believe there was legislation up this year to make said request illegal if it’s a church, though I don’t know if it passed)…
The saddest thing in our neighborhood is the tape over the line “No Firearms” on the park rules sign next to the children’s playground equipment. All the restaurants had to take down their signs as well. And, of course, it’s always open season on university professors.
*sigh*
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Wait–it may be illegal to prevent people in general from entering the park with a firearm on them, but it’s certainly not illegal for a bride and groom to expect their guests to respect a no-firearms request to attend their wedding!
Attending a particular wedding is not a constitutional or civil right. There are all kinds of reasons wedding hosts might withhold or withdraw an invitation to a particular person, most of which involve the Bill of Rights not at all. If a family member is so determined to attend a wedding to which he has been told he is no longer welcome just to prove he *can* show up with a gun — well, then I guess his problems are a lot bigger than Dear Prudence can address in her column!
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It is literally illegal to have a written posting saying no firearms– so it may be illegal to write it down. Perhaps a verbal no firearms would be ok? Though I think I’m not allowed to say no firearms in my class or office and it’s the same law.
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I would just tell bro-law to stay the hell off the premises, and to expect a pat-down if he doesn’t, except that that’s the kind of psychologically volatile thing that makes these types show up with a truckload of extra ammo. As the laws of physics continue to be reshaped by things like artificial intelligence, we must be on the cusp of the disruptive emergence of what I will call “electronic hammer-lock,” technology, a force-field thing that will reduce a revolver into the equivalent of my “phone”:: a heavy object to be thrown between the eyes of a rabid, charging chipmunk.
Snow in the CO foothills today? Wow, it’s been a long cold spring here in the east, but not anymore.
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Check this out, from an email I just received:
You be you, Colorado! I remember a snow storm on Mother’s Day once, in the early 2000s, but I’ve never seen snow on the plains or Front Range after the middle of May.
Agree with you on the nutty uncle. One wonders how to reach someone like that. We have open carry in our state, but I’ve never seen anyone actually openly carrying in a public place. My mother said she saw a man at the local supermarket a few weeks ago with a gun. If I ever see the same, I’ll leave my cart or basket right there and walk out. I will telephone the store from safety to let them know why I left precipitously.
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When we went on strike last fall, a guy came along who didn’t seem too much like an academic, and he was conspicuously packing on his hip, some kind of a “waffle iron,” as I heard the expression used in an old gangster film noir. He walked back and forth, up and down the picket line, for at least a half hour. The message seemed intending to convey hostility, but something about the body language also said street theater. All eyes were rolling, but they were all on this desperado as well. This was on the sidewalk at the edge of campus. No official institutional response to this episode was apparent. On the other hand, when the U. Band showed up to serenade and support the strikers, the provost showed up with some heat, I mean fuzz, and ran them the heck off of campus! Eyes resumed rolling.
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“It is literally illegal to have a written posting saying no firearms– so it may be illegal to write it down.”
I think the above would a matter of state and local law.
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Yes, that is what I said in the first comment. It is a state law.
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My sister is getting married in Arkansas. My dad is a bit of a gun nut. He asked me on the phone if I wanted to go to a gun range so he could show me how to use the bad boys and see how they have fun out there. I demurred.
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Why not? But surely he meant before or after the wedding, not during!
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“Dear Prudie,
I’d like to bring a grenade, and an artillery shell filled with mustard gas, to my nephew’s high school graduation, because god damn any liberal who wants to restrict my God-given right to bear arms. My sister and her husband, damn Democrat voters, don’t understand what it means to be an American. Please advise.”
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