Excellent bill! Most (if not all) hospitals in Austin are posted, and I hated leaving my gun at home when my wife went into surgery last year.
You can't always choose your hospital, either. Your health insurance (now required by law under threat of tax penalties) often determines which one you can go to based on their network coverage. And we all know about the hospital shootings that have happened elsewhere in the country.
My next question is this, what good are security guards if:
- They are unarmed (as most tend to be for cost and insurance reasons) [edit] Ignore this point, I just read the bill, and it says the security guard must be carrying a weapon in plain view
and
- There are no metal detectors to ensure no one gets past with something they shouldn't have?
I think permanently affixed metal detectors should be a requirement as well. What is to stop someone from entering with a concealed handgun, walking straight past the guards and into a supposedly sterile area? I'm okay with disarming in places where everyone is checked, but as it reads, only having security guards would simply create the illusion of security. I'm sure hospitals would not be able to put metal detectors in due to technical reasons (most entrances are double sliding doors) and cost reasons. And I'm sure the legislature would say it creates too big of a burden on hospitals that wish to ban concealed carry, but anything less isn't going to stop someone from shooting up a hospital.