Texas governor and newly-announced presidential candidate Rick Perry has taken the incendiary mixture of guns and politics to a new level. When it comes to carrying concealed weapons, Perry certainly walks the walk. He has a concealed carry permit and proudly says that he carries a gun when he is out jogging.
Perry recently was asked if he is armed while campaigning. He didn't respond by saying the question is ridiculous. He didn't say that in the close quarters of a rope line, with a multitude of people pulling and tugging at him, a gun could easily drop to the ground or be taken from him. He didn't say that an armed candidate would be a nightmare for the Secret Service. He didn't say any of those things. Instead, he smiled and refused to say whether or not he carried while campaigning. He added, "That's why it's called concealed."
Rick Perry apparently doesn't think the question is ridiculous. In fact, his sarcasm suggests he has no objection to political candidates carrying guns to campaign events; he seems to imply that he may do so himself. One thing is clear. The governor has been so thoroughly marinated in pro-gun ideology that he is unashamed about taking it to its logical extreme. If it is true that more guns in public places make us safer, why shouldn't political candidates carry guns? Isn't it the least they can do for their own safety?
I wonder if this thought ever occurred to Rick Perry: If a would-be presidential assailant is undeterred by Secret Service agents with Uzis, why would he be deterred by a presidential candidate packing heat? Does he think that if Ronald Reagan had been packing a Glock that fateful day 30 years ago, he would have gotten the drop on John Hinckley?
And then there's Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK). On Wednesday of last week, in expressing his frustration at the conduct of some of his Senate colleagues, Coburn told constituents, it's "a good thing I can't pack a gun on the Senate floor." I don't contest the senator's subsequent statement that he intended the comment as a joke, although, as Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), whose husband was killed and son injured by gunfire, powerfully observed, "I don't think any person who has been or knows a victim of gun violence would find this a laughing matter."
Coburn's joke also brings to mind the expression, "Half of all truth is said in jest." The fact is that the senator, with one tasteless joke, effectively made the case against legalizing guns in public places. Yes, it is a good thing that senators can't carry guns onto the Senate floor because the presence of guns, even carried by well-meaning, law-abiding citizens, increases the risk that arguments and conflicts will escalate to lethal violence. It is the same reason that our national parks are less safe because (due to legislation sponsored by Senator Coburn himself) concealed carry of weapons is now permitted within their borders. It is the reason that our streets, restaurants and coffee houses are less safe in states that have made concealed carry easier. It is the reason that college campuses remain far safer than the gun-saturated communities that surround them, because the gun lobby has been foiled in its efforts to force colleges and universities to allow concealed carry
I wonder if Rick Perry got Coburn's joke. Or if he's wondering, "Why aren't guns allowed on the Senate floor?"
If Rick Perry is our next president and he has a like-minded Congress, guns on the Senate floor may not be a laughing matter. They may well be the way things are in an American nightmare where, in political discourse, the guns speak louder than the rhetoric.
For more information, see Dennis Henigan's Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy (Potomac Books 2009). This blog is also posted at the Brady Campaign.
Josh Horwitz: The Real Slippery Slope of Gun Laws
Mark Sawyer and Michael Hanchard: Governor Rick Perry: America Love It or Leave It?
… the latest national telephone survey finds that 39% consider it a positive when a political candidate is described as being “pro-gun.”
Only 27% see this as a negative description, while another 30% say it lies somewhere in between. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Hee hee
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/september_2011/39_see_pro_gun_as_positive_label_27_say_it_s_a_negative
Once again the lack of factual information is apparent. Glock pistols didn't exist in 1981. The first Glock Pistol hit the market in 1983.
That photo above of Rick Perry firing off a semi-auto death machine in a crowded area of town makes me sick. I'll be making a large donation to the Brady Campaign as soon as Obama creates me one of those 4 million new high paying jobs.
Hang in there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Laughner Style Assault Clips of Mass Destruction Target Everyone!
http://tinyurl.com/4k346he
how's it going, with your business of making the gun prohibitionists look even more silly than they do themselves?
Gun Control only serves to hinder law abiding people. Criminals can still do what is illegal after gun bans. Look at England, and the increase of violent crime after their gun bans.
--Utter hogwash..
-- Not with a proper retention holster.
He didn't say that an armed candidate would be a nightmare for the Secret Service.
-- Really? Why?
But who knows if anyone in D.C. understands history's significance, especially in the matter of its forever repeating itself, or, for that matter, the Constitutional responsibility to insure domestic tranquility?
Interesting history.
"The 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in the militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self defense within the HOME"
Quite a few politicians have concealed carry permits. If Pres Obama had a permit, the only public outcry would be that it would be elitist given his objection to concealed carry for John Q Public.
"he 2nd amendment clearly states that a gun may be used as a weapon of self defense for the home."
Nothing in the Second says that the firearm is for defense within the home.
Notice it said "SUCH AS" when defining a lawful purpose. It in no way limited lawful use to the home, and armed self defense away from the home happens hundreds of thousands of times a year.
To illustrate my point, below is another quote from the Heller case that uses the same "SUCH AS" wording, yet they are discussing carry of firearms that are NOT in the home.
"The Courts opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possessions of firearms by felons or the mentally ill, or laws prohibiting the carrying of weapons in sensitive places SUCH AS schools or government buildings..."
I respect your opinion that all Americans should own a firearm for self defense. Many here are going to disagree with you. Maybe not in this story, but they will.
Welcome to the HuffPo. Hang on, it gets bumpy, sometimes.
Never has the legalization of guns in public places caused an increase in violence in those places. The parks are no less safe. This entire article is a emotionally charged, factually void rant for no cause.
Gee, all you could come up with was a rehash of the old "Our streets will run red with the blood of innocents if concealed carry laws pass!" canard? The fact is that our National Parks, streets, restaurants, and coffee houses are less safe only for criminals. Next time, try something that hasn't been thoroughly debunked.
ECS
From Heller:
At the time of the founding, as now, to “bear” meant to “carry.” See Johnson 161; Webster; T. Sheridan, A Complete Dictionary of the English Language (1796); 2 Oxford English Dictionary 20 (2d ed. 1989) (hereinafter Oxford).
When used with “arms,” however, the term has a meaning that refers to carrying for a particular purpose— confrontation. In Muscarello v. United States, 524 U. S.
125 (1998), in the course of analyzing the meaning of “carries a firearm” in a federal criminal statute, JUSTICE GINSBURG wrote that “[s]urely a most familiar meaning is,
as the Constitution’s Second Amendment . . . indicate[s]: ‘wear, bear, or carry . . . upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose . . . of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.’ ” Id., at 143 (dissenting opinion) (quoting Black’s Law Dictionary 214 (6th ed. 1998)).
We think that JUSTICE GINSBURG accurately captured the natural meaning of “bear arms.” Although the phrase implies that the carrying of the weapon is for the purpose of “offensive or defensive action,” it in no way connotes participation in a structured military organization.
"Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was no stranger to the idea of self-defense. According to Annelieke Dirks, “Even Martin Luther King Jr.—the icon of nonviolence—employed armed bodyguards and had guns in his house during the early stages of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956. Glenn Smiley, an organizer of the strictly nonviolent and pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), observed during a house visit that the police did not allow King a weapon permit, but that ‘the place is an arsenal."[3] Efforts from those like Smiley convinced Dr. King that any sort of weapons or “self-defense” could not be associated with someone like him in the position that he held. Dr. King agreed."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deacons_for_Defense_and_Justice
Just like Gandhi, he seems to have felt non violent means of self defense were quite appropriate.