> The original motivation for the ban was apparently that such barriers were seen by some as "an indignity" (perhaps with a racial dimension, since many of the customers of the stores are black and many of the owners and employees are Asian).
Also, as a tourist, if you see e.g. policemen with machine guns instead of regular (or no) guns, or police cars looking like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rover_Tangi instead of regular cars, does that make you feel safer, or does it make you want to avoid that area in the future? And I can imagine seeing bulletproof glass in all stores you visit has a similar effect...
There is a much more obvious motivation that is more than plausible: the desire to not get shot.
If this is a case of a silly law on the books that is easy for the governor to solve. "For every one new law you want me to sign, the state must nullify at least two of the laws on this list of silly laws." Or in the case of a state constitution everyone follows a process to amend or ratify changes to remove or negate the silly statutes.
It can hardly be called a "silly law on the books " when the law was enacted 5 years ago.
I ask because similar things are occurring as we speak with body armor. Canada and the US are trying to make it illegal for anyone outside of law enforcement to buy body armor. It's silly of course, since anyone that has any sewing knowledge can easily make a plate carrier and anyone can get plates of steel cut to fit the plate carrier decorated with kittens. One could even use books instead of steel plates as Demolition Ranch demonstrated.