Guns That Talk; Are we launching a new civil war?

It's like truth or dare. And it's legal.

Get your permit or whatever and you, too, can bring an assault rifle to the next presidential speech you attend. There's nothing the police can do - amazing! If only the Democrats, back when George Bush was president, had known there was a safe, legal way to protest presidential policy and register discontent with the direction the country was headed. Can you imagine?

I ponder the phenomenon of gun speech - the amplified malevolence of the inarticulate - and hope, pray that it fizzles out quickly in its current manifestation: as a presence at town hall meetings on health care, at appearances by President Obama, at any random venue in which the nation's future is being discussed. I fear, however, that this is going to catch on, and if it does, well . . . the line in the sand has been drawn. At what point did public sanity cease to be a value?

Consider what life was like, oh, let's say five years ago. Here's a slice of news from July 4, 2004:


Nicole and Jeff Rank were arrested in Charleston, W.Va. - handcuffed, hustled away, charged with trespassing - because they were wearing T-shirts that said "Love America, Hate Bush" on the grounds of the state capitol on the day George Bush was scheduled to make a speech there. The Charleston Gazette further reported that those who applied for tickets to hear Bush's speech "were required to supply their names, addresses, birth dates, birthplaces and Social Security numbers."

That was then: "Free speech zones" were the norm; protesters were routinely whisked out of sight at every Bush appearance, even though, you know, we have a First Amendment and all.

This is now: A dozen guys with guns gathered outside a convention center in Phoenix on Monday as President Obama spoke. At least two of them had assault rifles slung over their shoulders. "Phoenix police said the men carrying guns at Monday's event did not need permits, as the state of Arizona has an "open carry' law," the U.K. Telegraph reported. "No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested."

A few days earlier, in Portsmouth, N.H., a man with a pistol strapped to his leg, holding a sign that read "It is time to water the tree of liberty," stood outside the local high school where Obama addressed a town hall meeting on health care. Another man was, in fact, arrested in Portsmouth that day because he had a loaded, unlicensed gun in his parked truck.

And, oh yeah, on Aug. 5, at a town hall meeting sponsored by Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, at a supermarket in Douglas, Ariz., a guy carrying a holstered pistol beneath his armpit was escorted off the premises by police when the weapon fell to the floor and bounced as he bent over. He wasn't arrested.

This phenomenon has several layers of tangled complexity: The first concerns the motives of the gun toters. Why would they bring a lethal weapon to a public event? Surely not out of fear for their personal safety. (If you're that scared, just stay home, OK?) They're obviously making a point. The one I'm getting is: See this, punk? I'm not going to kill you, but I could. Yammer all you want, but just be aware that I'm the serious one here. (Those whose weapons were concealed may have been making the same point, but only for their own reassurance of self-worth.)

More troubling and puzzling is the official nonchalance with which these incidents are being met. Considering that, in the Bush era, security personnel at every level were quick to find laws that superseded free speech whenever the president showed his face in public, how can lethal firepower - more dangerous than a T-shirt - be tolerated in the vicinity of the president of the United States?

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http://www.opednews.com/articles/Guns-That-Talk-by-Bob-Koehler-090820-244.html

to validate their darkest fantasies.

But they will never cause me to look back wistfully at the thuggery of the previous administration.

I am reasonably certain that anyone that would open carry to make a statement is thinking tactically about his position. Others may go about their day and never imagine there are other people who have a concealed weapon, but you can bet it has occurred to these goofs.

Free publicity, and completely burying what President Obama is saying about health care reform---instead shifting the dicussion to whining about state laws that allow the ownership of small-caliber rifles with protruding handgrips, and the carrying of same (unloaded, with empty magazine) in unsecured areas in the general vicinity of a Presidential speech (nowhere near the President and not in the secure zone).

Get a freaking grip; the author of that piece has been manipulated and played for a sucker. Take a page from the White House: the President was in no danger, no one with a gun was in a secure area, state laws apply. Get the debate back to health care instead of breathlessly dicussing publicity stunts by people trying to distract attention from that issue.

It's about time, too. The end of the GOP will put paid to the Southern sensibility. The Unconvinced won't have any power left, no friends, no credit, and no reason to exist.

not standing up to these crackheads. When someone tries to kill Obama than what will they say?