Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Talking Points Memo reports Twelve Carry Guns — Including Assault Rifle — Outside Obama Event:
About 12 people were carrying guns, including at least one semi-automatic assault rifle, outside a building where President Obama was speaking today.
No one was arrested outside the VFW National Convention in Phoenix, according to the Associated Press, where hundreds of people demonstrated both for and against health care reform. There are no reports that the 12 were part of an organized group.
The man spotted carrying the assault rifle and a pistol, who gave his name only as "Chris", was asked why he was armed. "Because I can do it," he said. "In Arizona, I still have some freedoms." You can watch the video from ArizonaCentral.com (go to about 1:30). He's being interviewed by a man who's also wearing a handgun.
Two police officers kept close by. Carrying guns, including the AR-15 assault rifle, is legal under Arizona law.
"If we need to intervene, we will intervene at that time," said Detective J. Oliver.
CNN's Ed Henry reported seeing a second man with an assault rifle, but that has not been confirmed.
These reports come less than a week after two people brought guns to a presidential event in Portsmouth, N.H. At Obama's town hall there, one man was arrested for having a gun hidden in his car after the Secret Service found him at Portsmouth High School hours before Obama arrived carrying a pocketknife. He didn't have a license for a concealed weapon.
Another man in Portsmouth was spotted carrying a gun in a leg holster outside the school. The unconcealed weapon was legal under New Hampshire law and he was not arrested. Later, when asked why he brought the gun, he replied, "That's not even a relevant question. The question is, why don't people bear arms these days?"
And that's not all. A man brought a gun to a town hall with Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) last week, without incident. At an event with Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), someone dropped a gun, but he had a permit and no police report was taken. And two weeks ago, a New Mexico man tweeted that reform opponents should bring guns to town halls and "badly hurt" SEIU reps.
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RsMantra:
Article I Section 8 of the Constitution says that Congress has the power “to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia.” Since that is the case, the Second Amendment cannot possibly be about arming the milita – such an interpretation makes the Second Amendment redundant at best and meaningless at worst.
The Second Amendment speaks of a “well-regulated militia”, not a well-armed militia. The word “regulated” means “disciplined and trained”, or “controlled”; it does not mean “armed”. Thus, there must be some other reason the Second Amendment exists.
The Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution to reassert the natural liberties of the people, protecting them from federal intrusion. The Second Amendment, then, must be viewed from that perspective in order to derive the proper interpretation of it. So the issue is how the Second Amendment reasserts a natural liberty and protects the people from federal intrusion, and the answer is this: an armed citizenry regulates the militia, thus protecting the security of the nation.
At many times and places, unregulated militias (armies) have wrought tremendous oppression on unarmed citizens or staged bloody coups. Our Founders were aware of those dangers, and protected the individual’s right to keep and bear arms as a foil against unchecked military power.
Francine,
Paraphrasing Freud, he would have said that a fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity.
Todd,
Why not? For decades I’ve heard the anti-gun side scream about blood in the streets if ordinary citizens are able to carry. This has never happened anywhere. The fact is that an armed society, is a polite society.
Chris didn’t carry to intimidate anyone, he carried to demonstrate his rights. I would be pleased as punch if every single person (who was not a prohibited possessor) were carrying a firearm. You can pretty much guarantee that no one will be getting shot.
I also can tell you definitively that there were far more than a dozen firearms at that protest. I know of at least 20 other people who were carrying concealed. I would place money on there being many many more. Yet no one got shot, or even came close to getting shot.
Here is a serious point. I don’t care whether these guys carry guns when the president is in town, what I worry about is carry guns to a political protest where tempers flare and people can get quite emotional. I believe many people felt that this was an intimidation tactic and I bet if it continues you might see others bringing guns (and let’s acknowledge the fact that its not just conservatives who own guns). Is this a good situation to be moving towards?
@ Michael:
Nice try. Read above.
1. _We both know the guy,_ “Brice” does better than I do. He’s a well-spoken, calm professional. The sort that you might want to have as a neighbor.
2. The suggestion is that you’re getting your ideas about gun owners from TV rather than from gun owners. That you bring up those redneck bigots who sit in lawn chairs looking for Mexicans without papers heading northward pretty much confirms this. And you certainly presume far, far too much about me.
Yes, there are nutty firearms enthusiasts. There are also nutty, piggish leftists out there, in at least equal number.
@ Francine Shacter:
Freud would say that you are equating the sexual act with either defense or aggression. Expect a German-accented “Very interesting…” and “Tell me about your mother…” if you go ask him. But he’s dead, like socialism and Optimus Prime and Jesus, so you can’t ask.
@Michael:
I think you’re trying to be insulting, but it’s not really working.
Are you suggesting that firearms owners are all racist?
Are you suggesting that we should allow people to break our laws?
Are you suggesting that illegal aliens are all just good folks looking for work?
Kudos to Ben and Brice for exposing Hollywood writers for the stereotype mongers that they are. In recent months, it seems that these left-coasters have redoubled their efforts to malign the sturdy Nascar volk who are doing everything they can to save this great country from the socialist menace of Obamacare.
I remember seeing a trailer for a film this April, for instance, which featured a predictably racist, firearms enthusiast named Richard Poplawski who murdered three police officers in Pittsburg PA because he believed that the Kenyan pirate currently occupying the White House was going to violate his second-amendment rights and take his guns away. Give me a break! As if such a chimera could exist anywhere outside of some vulgar left-wing melodrama.
I second Ben’s advice and recommend that all you lefties who read this blog stop believing everything you see on television and get out and acquaint yourselves with some real gun owners, maybe by spending a weekend patrolling the border with the minutemen where you’ll get the opportunity to harass some really vulnerable people who, despite their deer-in-headlights look, threaten our country at its very foundation. I’m sure you’ll find that these true patriots are nothing like what the liberal media portrays them to be.
Nice catch on the KKK angle, Ben. Somehow I missed that.
Methinks RSmantra did not actually watch any of the coverage
@RsMantra:
1. If you and I are thinking of the same KKK, I don’t think they’d take Chris as a member.
2. Nobody was carrying an assault rifle at the event under discussion here, and if you read that someone was in a newspaper it is because a reporter is ignorant. Besides, there are firearms one can buy at Wal-Mart that could do more mischief, in that sort of situation, than even a real assault rifle.
3. The “arm a militia” thing is now thoroughly without credibility, via a long line of scholarship culminating in Heller v. DC. The discussion took place but the decision was made to write a more general law than just guaranteeing the right to arm militias. Actually, what you bring up is “original intent” jurisprudence which itself is without any credibility whatsoever. What matters is not what “the founders” thought but rather what the law was, as it would be interpreted by a literate lawyer at the time of passage–“original meaning”. Worlds of difference.
And were the KKK to have assault rifles, they could carry them in many places and situations, and it’s in part because of a certain old law, and in part because the country has now moved beyond hoplophobia.
If you are a believer in free speech, you will see this as a good thing. RKBA takes bullying off the table.
RsMantra;
Chris is a pretty smart guy. He was aware that there might be some nuts who think like you. Therefore, he carried his rifle unloaded with an empty magazine. He also had 2 Phoenix Police officers and 1 Secret Service agent escorting him. His group made some calls beforehand and let Law Enforcement know of their plans. Neither the Phx PD nor the SS saw any problem with it.
Chris also had several individuals in his group always behind him, to watch for exactly that kind of trouble.
Us gun owner’s aren’t dumb. We know people do stupid stuff sometimes, including what you suggested, and we plan for it.
What if one of the other loonies…left or right, grabbed good old Chris’s peaceful piece? Just because the founding fathers thought it necessary to arm a militia doesn’t mean that the KKK can go around with their assault rifles. Things change over 225 years.
Seen in the light of the recent assault on a button vendor by SEIU union goons (actually, by a union oficial!)–are we really back to the days of the Don and Teri Adams beating?–Chris’s actions could take on a more specific meaning, even if he wasn’t expecting a confrontation, since he probably wasn’t. But rather than go into the two or three possibilities for that, I’ll wait for him to speak for himself.
Hmmmmmm. I wonder what Freud would have said about this.
@ “Steve”:
Most of what we do in this life, thanks to capitalism and modern technology, is not what is “necessary”. Asking why the actions of a party you disagree with are “necessary” is ordinarily not fair. Why is it “necessary” that anyone express his opinion at a demonstration in any fashion? Of course it wasn’t necessary.
But if you’re asking merely why he might have done it: maybe it was to demonstrate peaceful carry, or maybe it is because carry in general, and open carry in particular, has become a sort of countercultural act, usually a demonstration of one’s belief in individual liberty, limited government, and the full set of Bill of Rights protections. This is probably why it is so common at Bill of Rights Day and Independence Day events. Were I studying semiotics and not RNA polymerase in the lab all day, I’d tell you more.
The way a normal adult should act is to not make a big deal about it: “So what if that man has an AR-15 slung from his shoulder!” Normal adults are not afraid of peaceful people carrying firearms and this does not change if the person carrying is simultaneously exercising his right to free speech. Normal adults do not assume that the person carrying is going to shoot people with whom he disagrees. Normal adults are not afraid of the gun itself or the gun owner.
Flounder: Some people are already carrying on the floor of the legislature and have been for years. It’s really nothing new. You’d be surprised as to who, including their sexes and their party affiliations.
I’ve been thinking about starting a ballot measure to allow both conceal and open carry in the State Legislature. It seems like it is the only place in the state where it is not allowed, except stuff run by the feds.
My reasoning is guns make America safer, and since our legislature does such important work, like creating our state budget, they need to be just as safe as the rest of us. Plus I think it would increase freedom. Right now the legislature suffers from the tyranny of the metal detector. Tyranny like that makes the ghost of Thomas Jefferson cry ghost tears.
Would anyone sign my petition?
Hey Ben:
You are missing the point entirely. Why is it necessary to show your weapons when the president comes to town? If Chris is a calm law abiding citizen why does he have to show off his guns? We know it is legal but why flaunt it in the crowd. Is this common sense? Is this way a normal adult should act?
Actually, now that I see the picture and that the guy’s name is Chris: I know the guy! He’s calm, well-spoken, profoundly peaceful, very much a supporter of traditional First Amendment rights, one of the few paleocons who haven’t struck me as nuts.
Not at all what anony-coward “AzMama” would have him be. Some of you need to get out a bit more. Getting your ideas of gun owners from television programs written by Hollywood leftists doesn’t work very well.
If you’d like to meet him and perhaps go shooting, I might be able to make a few phone calls and arrange it.
Armed protesters act peacefully, do not shoot anyone, demonstrating once again that people who carry are not a menace to society. How is this even worth a mention? Especially if you’re anti-RKBA–if you’re anti-RKBA this flies in the face of everything your believe about what happens when people carry.
But a technical correction for you: There’s no such thing as a “semi-automatic assault rifle”–an assault rifle is by, by definition, a selective-fire weapon, usually switchable between semi-auto and auto, sometimes with 3-shot bursts available a la the M16. The AR15 is a non-selective-fire M16, yes, but that makes it really no different than a hunting rifle.
In fact, if I were really worried about an assassination, I’d be far, far more worried about hunting or target rifles of the sort one can get from Bass Pro Shop. The M16 was designed, based on studies post WWII, for close-range combat, not hitting the President from a mile away.
All assault rifles are regulated by the NFA, which, among other things, cut off the supply entirely post 1986, making them either luxury items or contraband. Only rich people or thugs can own what is handed out to 18-year-olds trying to figure out what to do with their lives post high-school.
Great. Just great. All of these “God gave me this here Constitutional right to have this here gun and if I want to bring it, I’m agonna bring” jackholes make the state a shining star of loons.
Thanks Sen. Sylvia Allen.