In case it isn't obvious: The guns at health care town halls are threats of right-wing violence.

When Phil Gingrey tells Chris Matthews, as he did on last night's Hardball, that there's nothing significant about all these guns at the town halls, he's either being disingenuous or stupid. There's no other possibility. The guns are a meant to threaten Congress to do as they say or else. It's all part of what Josh Marshall at TPM points out is a troubled history of the right's first resort: violence.


http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/9KQHxD2rnbE/troubled_history.php


Troubled History

|||Today 12:15 PM|

Josh Marshall

As we track the escalating number of incidents of right-wing fringers bringing guns to Obama events or other health create town hall events, we are, unsurprisingly, seeing various conservative websites mocking the public concern. "Oh, those Dems, they go all wobbly just because a few upstanding citizens show up with legal firearms." Call it the new girly-manism, it's a sign that Democrats are so many political panty-waists because they've never seen the gun culture up close or just get easily rattled.

It's true that there are some regional divergences at work here. Weapons just don't get carried around in public in say New Jersey or Connecticut the way they do in the South or especially the west.

But let's be honest about what this is about. The right -- the modern American right -- has a very troubled history with political violence. A simple review of the 1990s, particularly 1993, 1994, culminating in many respects in the tragic 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal building in April 1995. Mix in the militias, the thankfully inept attempt on President Clinton's life a few months before Oklahoma City (see Francisco Duran) and it's all really not a pretty picture.

One moment stands out clearly in my mind. Back in the early days of the Bush administration, Mickey Kaus had a typically contrarian post in which he suggested that with the rising tide of animosity on the left toward President Bush it was only a matter of time before we saw the outcropping of political violence on the left, to parallel what we'd seen from the right with the Clinton-hatred of the mid-1990s. (Perhaps someone can dig up the post? Late Update: Found.) It was a typically Kausian post, not only for its strained contrarianism but more for its complete failure of predictive value. And the failure of anything in parallel to arise was even more telling because antipathy toward President Bush really did become entrenched, inflamed and profound. Far more than I would have imagined at the outset.

Now, I know we'll likely get emails from right-wingers pointing out some animal rights activists who freed a bunch of gerbils, another fellow whose tires got slashed and no doubt a host of people with backwards Bs scrawled on their cheeks. But I think we all know the story here.

This isn't a matter of fear, though like all patriotic Americans we react strongly to veiled threats against our legitimately elected president. It's really more in the mode of the concern you show an old -- perhaps estranged -- friend or relative with a chronic alcohol problem or maybe one who just can't kick the crack pipe and always has it hovering in the background -- a threat to their well-being in moments of stress but also a constant temptation.

In a way you want to help. But mainly -- and at the end of the day -- you don't want to let their personal demons drag the whole family down.

Let's be honest with ourselves: the American right has a deep-seated problem with political violence. It's deep-seated; it's recurrent and it's real. And it endangers the country. It just makes sense to say something the first time they hit the sauce and not wait for things to get really out of hand.

This is not about your 2nd amendment rights.

I understand the confusion.

and the threat they posed?

The silence is almost unbearable.

I think it is to see if the administration will swoop down and round these guys up. While misguided, what they are doing is LEGAL, and if the cops were to round them up, they would use it as an example of rights being trampled and Obama "taking our guns." It would become a rallying cry to the right wing base.

Certainly they would welcome a crack down, but that is secondary and is unlikely to happen until somebody gets shot.

brandish a gun at a public political event like this (I know what their argument is but I find it unbelievable) -- with our history of political assassinations and gun violence? Plus isn't it intimidating to anyone who has to stand next to these assholes?

.. laws vary by state, but a holstered handgun isn't considered brandishing in most of them. Laws vary more when it comes to rifles.

If one of these nuts were arrested the Reich-in-exile's noise machine would kick into full gear screaming that their 1st & 2nd Amendment rights were being trampled.

On the other hand, maybe a few of them should be arrested - while the wingnuts are screaming about it and paying attention to nothing else the Democrats could get a Medicare for All bill passed and signed.

And they're missing the point entirely. When you have a right, it really does help to exercise that right in an intelligent manner, especially in public.


Open carry may be legal, but that doesn't make it smart when you do it under those circumstances.


I'm pretty positive that if I was wandering around downtown St. Paul during the RNC convention a year ago with my scope-sighted deer rifle on my shoulder... I'd have been downtown real fuckin' quick.


Probably still twitching from the tazer and wheezing from the pepper spray.

I think some might be wanting to dare the gun-grabbing authorities to make them martyrs. But I think there's a subtext to that, which is that the guns are intended to disturb the peace rather than preserve it. They're trying to signal that they have more faith in their bullets winning the argument than in their actual arguments winning it.

LEGAL to fart in a crowded elevator, but civilized people don't do it just because they can. According to your logic, if these right-wing radical idiots want to threaten and intimidate others at public gatherings, we are obligated to just "put up with it?"

Patriots my ass! They are pissing on the "Tree of Liberty."

You're not alone.

Really?

To intimidate and incite.

that poster claimed that the OP was wrong, the intent is not to intimidate, the intent is to goad the government into cracking down. Obviously the intent is to intimidate. The intent could also be to incite a reaction from the government, but that is speculation. The intimidation is manifest and deliberate.

the additional intent on inciting action by law enforcement in hope of proving that Obama is a gun grabber.

I don't see any way in which these activities do not fulfill items 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 of the Texas statute quoted below. The only legal quibble I could see might be about whether you have to actually make a verbal threat or not -- but since these gun-toters have already forced police and Secret Service to react to their presence, have placed people in fear of bodily harm, and are acting in a manner intended to influence government activities, I would guess that implied threat is probably sufficient.

Like they say, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." And on exactly the same grounds, "Guns don't present terroristic threats, people present terroristic threats."

This is not about guns. It's about using guns for criminal purposes.


http://definitions.uslegal.com/t/terroristic-threat/

A terroristic threat is a crime generally involving a threat to commit violence communicated with the intent to terrorize another, to cause evacuation of a building, or to cause serious public inconvenience, in reckless disregard of the risk of causing such terror or inconvenience. It may mean an offense against property or involving danger to another person that may include but is not limited to recklessly endangering another person, harassment, stalking, ethnic intimidation, and criminal mischief.

The following is an example of a Texas statute dealing with terroristic threats:

TERRORISTIC THREAT

(a) A person commits an offense if he threatens to commit any offense involving violence to any person or property with intent to:

1. cause a reaction of any type to his threat<s> by an official or volunteer agency organized to deal with emergencies;
2. place any person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury;
3. prevent or interrupt the occupation or use of a building; room; place of assembly; place to which the public has access; place of employment or occupation; aircraft, automobile, or other form of conveyance; or other public place;
4. cause impairment or interruption of public communications, public transportation, public water, gas, or power supply or other public service;
5. place the public or a substantial group of the public in fear of serious bodily injury; or
6. influence the conduct or activities of a branch or agency of the federal government, the state, or a political subdivision of the state.

Actually texas is not an open carry state, but that is irrelevant.

Do you think that these are just random people who just happen to be heavily armed at demonstrations?

Why are they openly armed? Just because they can be? Do you really believe that 'exercising their rights 'is the only reason?

.. a whole bunch of attendant laws would have to change. So your 'what-if' wouldn't really be valid, unless the legislature missed one. (Similar issue happened with the 'castle doctrine' in the early 90's- the legislators either missed one additional section of law, or the additional change got stuck behind some retarded repugnican filibuster, and we had two years of legal limbo.)

sick SOB's are not normal people.

The organized militant right is pushing for a fight.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Funny how all the others are angry whites.

Simply laughable. Enjoy your VERY brief stay.

BTW, you want Pepperoni?

Speaking of tops, what sort of topping would you like?

I only have a few minutes to waste anyway.

The unspoken message is, "Do what we want or else."

Many municipalities have moved to protect citizens from second hand cigarette smoke, but it's ok to be exposed to a pissed off nutcase with a gun. What the fuck! The second amendment gives them the right to have a gun, not the right to intimidate other citizens by carrying that gun to a heated debate.

Another great post. Thank you!!

Certainly the show of weaponry at rallies and town halls are thinly veiled threats against anyone with D beside their name. No other explanation for it.

No, not that I can remember. But it seems to me that if one farted in *'s general direction one risked doing hard time. And if one had the effing audacity to make a lame joke about * the risk was absolutely real. For example http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6283725

That is my reaction to someone taking a gun like that to a town hall meeting. I am embarrassed to be an American.

I saw Gingrey on Tweetie last night and noticed how he started affecting a hokey drawl when he talked about people and their guns.


Cher

I suspect it's only a matter of time before someone actually gets hurt. I wonder how proud they'll be of asserting their rights after they get hauled off to life in prison for discharging their arms and actually hurting or killing innocent bystanders daring to exercise *their* right to political discourse.

Arms in the hands of the people provide the people with the ultimate means of power over their elected officials. These people are making that political point when they attend political rallies bearing arms.

It is a threat, and it is precisely the kind of threat that our founders intended the people to pose.

Our founders did not enumerate our right to keep and bear arms so that our mantles would look tough and rustic.

Interesting theory.

:patriot:

It would have been great to see them during the suspension of habeus corups, rendition, and torture.

If city council doesn't vote the new zoning law the way you like, you can threaten them with armed violence so you get your way?

Because that's the 'tyranny' many of these nutjobs would fight, if they could.

Don't like the outcome of an election?

Threaten the office holder with potential violence.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

No. I do not believe in using the threat of violence so long as we have a representative government, which clearly we do.

My point here is that we are entering the shallowest point of the bell curve of people who believe we do NOT have a representative government. And these people are taking up arms, if only for show for now.

arrested at a political event for wearing the wrong T shirt, or being caged up in a fenced 'free speech zone.'

I don't understand why this is such a threatening thing to so many DUers. Do you also feel threatened every time you see a cop with a weapon? Open carry is not a threat unless you intend harm to the open carrier.

At least the cop is marginally accountable for his or her actions.

Showing up at public demonstration armed and dangerous is an attempt to send a message. Try not to be quite so thick. This is not about your 2nd amendment right, it is about political theater.

I think we know the reason.

These guns are not meant to elevate the discussion. They're a sign of mistrust of dialogue.

who wants to exercise their First Amendment right to speak out or carry a sign. Who knows what might set off a show-off gunslinger's rage?

GMAB! We aren't talking about law enforcement, and you know it. This is why the GOP/Right Wingers are done in this country. The membership is now only a bunch of NUTS who are the Lunatic Fringe.

when the remnants of an extremist, anti-Obama militant domestic terrorist group, the Viper Reserves, are behind the open-carry displays at the event in Arizona?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/heavily_armed_militia_defended_by_activist_resisted_new_world_order.php?ref=m1

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x356947

No, I don't feel threatened by tested and trained LEOs and SS agents -- only by unstable and untrained armed cultist nut cases responding to some right-wing wacko radio hate-monger.

Did it ever occur to anyone that some of them might very well be Democrats? If you ask any question here about gun ownership, licensing, or even display you get well over half of the responses from Democrats who are appreciative of their 2nd Amendment rights, own guns, shoot them, and in many cases carry them too. Now I'll grant you that the typical DU reader isn't so insecure or otherwise miswired as to think an appearance by the President signals a good place to carry a gun, but still there is little to no reason to believe this is all one-sided. As I have been watching the news I've only seen one of those gun-toting idiots interviewed, I don't know squat about the other's motives.

Rightwing Armed Thugs? Everyone of them has self identified as a liberloon teabagger and nobody else in their right mind goes to a public demonstration openly carrying a weapon, other than the police.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/2009/08/watch-man-carries-an-assault-rifle-outside-obama-event.php

In a YouTube video, the man who carried a semi-automatic assault rifle outside yesterday's presidential event tells fellow demonstrators "We will forcefully resist people imposing their will on us through the strength of the majority with a vote."

The man, only identified as "Chris," spoke against taxation: "Just because you sic the government on people doesn't make it morally OK to steal money from people. Taxation is theft."

He also said "it would be insane" not to be armed, saying he wears a gun at all times.

But he didn't seem to be planning any violence. At the beginning of the video, a voice off-camera asks, "You gonna water the tree of liberty?" a reference to a Thomas Jefferson quote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Chris responded, "I hope not."

The video comes from a libertarian group called Freedom's Phoenix and another group called 4409, which opposes police security cameras.

Taxation WITH representation is not theft. Besides, the idiot is probably getting a tax break under the Obama tax plan, not a tax increase.

*sigh*

to a Bush event? They were intimidated by contrary T-shirts or signs.

the looks of the crowd if a bunch of people wearing keffiyehs showed up at a Palin rally holding SKS47/AK47s and blabbering on about 2nd admendment rights etc. Now that would be interesting.

Cheers

their disrespect for this POTUS. Seems to me they are trying to minimize his importance compared to other presidents. As if he doesn't deserve the same respect. I find it disgusting. It has nothing to do with the 2nd amendment. It's the freepers etc. thumbing their nose at a African American President.

to see a black man with a gun. This was after all, the origin of gun control in the southern states after the civil war.
No one got too excited until the pictures of the gentleman with the AR slung over his shoulder hit the news...then OMG!!!!
His actions shouldn't frighten anyone, no laws were broken. I believe a hoplophobe is an irrational person. I'm glad the authorities
are reminded from time to time that citizens are armed. I don't want to live where only the state has access to weapons.

:toast:

that come to Health Care Town Halls packing a gun, has six CIA sharpshooter scopes on them.

type what my brain was thinking. The wingnuts have driven me insane?

You know, the ones we spent billions of dollars incarcerating. Arguments regarding drug use seems to be such an empty one to me in comparison to this other one. It seems to pivot around the Limbaugh mentality.

If I could say one thing about this subject, it's that I now see that the conservatives have learned that when you want to cover your ass, do so preemptively. In other words, if you are a violent fascistic group who don't like government, you use government to create laws that favor your ideology, and that cover for your own flaws. Such as, a drug war that demonizes an entire fraction of the country, all while you run drugs and trade arms, and start wars, and curb civil rights, and and and...

Their tendency for violence is as predictable as it has been long lived.

Post of the day! THE agenda of the right-wing lunatic fringe is very clear. What a bunch of losers. However, more than that, it's a pretty sad day when people are allowed to stand outside Town Hall meetings with guns and assault weapons strapped to their bodies. Even if the nut with the gun doesn't intend to use it, what if another nut grabs their gun and uses it?

The guys with AR-15s at presidential rallies? They're just your basic right-wing assholes. I think they're symptomatic, though, of growing preparations of violence among the loonier on the right. These guys are just swaggering blustering chickenshits who are afraid that a liberal black is going to steal their guns and turn them gay. Chickenshits they may be, but at least they have the self-control to not make any vocal threats or actually commit violence; soemthing tells me they've got friends at hoem watching on Faux News who don't have that self-control.

2 words
SMALL PENIS

They would have found themselves prosecuted under anti-terrorism laws I have no doubt. This is total bullshit that the police are letting this happen.

:confused:

Was Bush a good President or was he a horrible one?

If his policies were bad then they would be bad today under Obama.

It is almost like some sick game of "Bush violated the civil rights of our protesters so Obama should the civil rights of their protesters to get even".

What kind of moonbat shit is that.

And yes even if you think guns at a protest is stupid, and arrogant and SHOULD be illegal currently it is legal. Arresting someone for a non-crime is a violation of their civil rights.