The Daily Background
| The most disturbing trend in American politics today
by Arlen Parsa
At multiple events in recent days, right wingers have brought loaded guns to protests outside of President Obama’s health care events. At one recent town hall, about a dozen people with guns showed up, including one man with a semi-automatic machine gun. It later turned out to be part of a conservative radio stunt, but that hardly matters.
Many states have so-called “open carry” laws, which means that citizens may bring fire arms virtually anywhere in public as long as they are licensed. When asked why they brought firearms to protests outside the president’s events, the gun-toters uniformly reply “because I can.”
It goes without saying that health care has nothing to do with gun control or gun rights and that nothing in the proposed reform legislation contains anything even remotely related to the second amendment. So why are these bizarrely off-topic protests occurring?
The answer is simple. It’s the same reason that conservative whites brought nooses and the like to civil rights demonstrations. It’s meant to serve as an intimidating warning. And you better believe the Secret Service is going crazy over this. I predict that 20– no, 10 years from now from now, people will look back at this trend of conservatives bringing loaded weapons to Obama’s events with disgust, if they don’t already.
I’m glad you pointed out that the purpose of the “gun-toters” is simple intimidation — inhibiting freedom of speech. It is a useful prop for those who lack the intelligence and/or courage to debate an idea.
The only reason people find it disturbing is that it is uncommon. If it becomes more common to see guns in public, then it won’t be a spectacle any longer.
I read an article that quoted the Secret Service as saying that these incidents *didn’t* require them to do anything differently. In other words the people were *not* a security threat.
Why stop comparing them to people that brought nooses to events in the past. Why not include a Nazi reference as well?
Randy
Aside from the intimidation factor, I see it partly as nostalgia.
They are being told that their country is slipping away and carrying a gun makes them feel apart of the America that their parent’s, parent’s, parents grew up in.
BTW, glad to see you back to old form
Why the overeaction??
Liberty means not having to explain why you choose to do something protected by both sate law and the constitution.
Peaceful protest does not only mean kumbaya and placards.
Liberty means not having to check with your neighbor to see if she approves of your actions, and if she does not approve, its a free country …..gated communities await
i think that gun control is a must because more guns means more deaths “”-