Supporters of Joe Miller--the U.S. Senate candidate supported by Sarah Palin in Alaska--carried assault rifles and wore open side arms during a festive community parade this week, while young children marched alongside them.
Miller is running in the GOP primary against incumbent Republican US Senator Lisa Murkowski, a far more popular figure in Alaska these days than Palin, who quit her position as governor a year ago amidst a series of ethics scandals and an impending override of her federal stimulus veto.
Footage of the event, located on Youtube and at the website of noted Alaska blogger Andrew Halcro, shows a handful of potbellied Miller supporters behind a black Humvee openly brandishing weapons at the Bear Paw Festival, a popular community celebration held annually in Eagle River and Chugiak (located north of Anchorage along the Old Glenn Highway on the way to the Palins' home town of Wasilla). The five-day festival includes a "Teddy Bear Picnic," barbecues, music and a historical fair.
Miller, who received the Alaska Tea Party endorsement and whose politics are well to the right of Atilla the Hun, served as an assistant attorney for the Fairbanks North Star Borough from 2002-2009. He left amidst controversy last year and failed to include this position anywhere in his official campaign bio or web site.
Palin's political action committee SarahPAC recently dished out a $5,000 contribution to Miller's campaign.
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Update: I've been discovered by the gun nuts and the NRA lobby. I feel so absolutely Amerkun! They've been issued their talking points and have taken their orders accordingly. 1) The image of the assault rifle above is a symbol. An image so that readers have a general sense of what we are talking about. I would have used a still image from the parade, but the Miller campaign didn't have any on its web site. Hmmmm...2) I am being branded a "liar" because I used the verb "brandish." Well here's a secondary definition of brandish: tr.v. 2. To display ostentatiously. I rest my case. 3) No one said this is illegal. 4) No one was saying to abolish the Second Amendment. 5) My father was a proud member of the NRA and a far better pistol shot and rifle shot than any of those yahoos in the video. And a respectful hunter. And he would have never done that in a family parade. Ever. 6) Some other yahoo wrote me a threatening note about keeping my hands off his guns. I don't think so. This "march" is like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. The purpose is clear: intimidation. 7) But here's an admonition that's real: Keep your guns away from my kids.
Award-winning writer and filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn's book The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power will be published by St. Martin's Press.
The man had a concealed-weapons permit to carry the gun, said Shannon Sessions, spokeswoman for Lynnwood police.
I guess if he had shot someone else- maybe a kid in one of them carts that look like cars- he would have been real sad...
The say no crime was committed but certainly reckless endangerment should have been ascribed.
>
>Japan is in Japan and America is in America.
>
>It would be rather idiotic to be unable to make the connection between having a
>firearm readily available and the increase of suicides. If there were more firearms
>in Japan, there would be even yet more suicides.
Oh, there's that infallible logic again.
If we're talking about homicides, it's "the U.S. has more homicides than any other industrialized nation....."
But if we're talking about suicides, it's "[Country A] is [Country A] and America is America".
Gee, i wish I could have my cake and eat it too.
So where is your evidence that there would be more suicides in Japan in there were more guns?
> So where is your evidence that there would be
> more suicides in Japan in there were more guns?
Where is your evidence that I am wrong?
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A Comparison of Suicide Rates: USA and Wales.
Males 15 and over:
--------------------
Year | -USA- | Wales
1999 | 21.91 | 24.6
2000 | 21.80 | 22.9
2001 | 22.42 | 23.1
2002 | 22.83 | 20.9
2003 | 22.41 | 23.4
2004 | 22.45 | 22.8
2005 | 22.45 | 18.8
2006 | 22.56 | 19.4
2007 | 23.13 | 20.3
____________________
Females 15 and over:
--------------------
Year | USA- | Wales
1999 | 5.04 | 5.1
2000 | 4.97 | 5.6
2001 | 5.09 | 4.9
2002 | 5.29 | 5.8
2003 | 5.28 | 6.6
2004 | 5.68 | 5.8
2005 | 5.53 | 4.4
2006 | 5.69 | 6.3
2007 | 5.91 | 4.3
Wales Statistics:
Home: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=13618
File: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_health/Suicide-rates-in-E&W-1991-2008.xls
US Statistics - WISQARS
http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10_sy.html
...and roll your own report.
____________________
So if firearms are a significant contributing factor in suicide, then why is the suicide rate in Wales, with no handguns and strict controls on all other firearms, so similar?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17922-carrying-a-gun-increases-risk-of-getting-shot-and-killed.html
Wearing a parachute increases risk of getting killed in a sky-diving accident.
Actually, these were mostly thugs shot by other thugs.
If you are a criminal in a high risk illegal career you are likely to carry a gun.
You are also at much greater risk of getting shot by another criminal than the average citizen.
It is also true that if you wear a helmet when you drive a four wheel motor vehicle you are more likely to be killed or injured in a crash than people who don't wear helmets while driving.
Of course people who wear helmets while driving cars are normally driving race cars.
Duh ! ! !
C I T E !
> You are also at much greater risk of getting shot
> by another criminal than the average citizen
N o n s e n s e ! You are most likely going to get shot by a gun from your own house!
What happens when you remove those who are illegally carrying a gun and engaging in activities that results in them being shot? The odds of being shot while armed are no greater than those of being unarmed.
> greater than those of being unarmed.
Prove it. C I T E!
Let's see. Put two unarmed people in a room. Give them plenty of food... water... how long would it take for one to shoot the other... NEVER.
Now let's put two armed people in the same room...
What the gnutters cannot bring themselves to admit: sooner or later, after marching around with their pieces... sooner or later they are going to go home and home is where the danger is.
Hahahaha! What kind of **total nonsense statistic* is that? Have you no shame at all?
I guess not.
If you exclude suicides, less than one person per state per day is murdered by a gun.
She and the GOP sound like they are encouraging gun-toting citizens toward and impending override of the federal government. Thanks for this, Geoff, (and by the way, Cabrillo College has completely cut their Chinese language program, hope you speak out against that at the next trustee meeting.)
It is hilarious.
But until we get it in check, lives are lost or destroyed. It is dangerously destructive to our way of life in a free nation. Guns are for threat and intimidation. Guns don't make us free. Guns as "self-defense" in the home, statistics prove, are more often deadly to the family or gun owner.
It won't be easy.
" . . . . Thanks for this, Geoff, (and by the way, Cabrillo College has completely cut their Chinese language program, hope you speak out against that at the next trustee meeting.)"
In what, Chinese?
In many places, the legality of open-carry is brand new. In others, it's a traditional right, but has been actively discouraged by arrests, booking, jailing, bail-bonds, and court calls.
The way I figure, more folks are open-carrying simply because they can. In some cases, it's just to rub the local constabulary's nose in it. In others, it's an enthusiastic celebration of a new or returned freedom.
I think it centers around the Tea Party because of the Official Festive Nut-Case atmosphere of their rallies. How can you not love a guy dressed in blue velvet 18th Century garb standing and talking with a guy with an Army-Wannabe rifle slung across hos chest?.
Yeah yeah yeah - I know - "blue velvet kills hundreds of people every year. It's dangerous and should be banned." In the meantime, it's legal. That's what the celebration is all about.
You celebrate your way. Let them celebrate theirs.
When all your alternatives suck this badly, what do you do?
"If it's so obvious to everyone that Obama can't get support for his crazy assault weapons ban, why then are they continuing to use it as a springboard for their protests? Could it be that it's a convenient disguise for their racism?"
What's so obvious? We have an election coming up, and there's already a democratic majority in Congress.
Only you would connect carrying rifles with racism. Racists are not usually very shy about expressing their racism quite explicitly. Why would they be so coy in this case?
At what point does disagreeing with someone who happens to be black make you a racist, and how does the presence or absence of firearms as an element of your expression make it any more or less racist?
If you're going to accuse people of being very subtly racist, you really ought not beat around the bush yourself.
Wasn't the first guy who made the news for going armed to a political rally black himself?
On the other hand, I think that buying an iPhone is unwise.
My thinking something is totally fruit-loops shouldn't impose a limitations on a stranger who wants to do something that's legal and reasonably safe.
My message: people do things all the time for which there is no universally accepted "reason".
Amen.
...and intimidated to what purpose? The election isn't until November.
...and, Alaska having a firearms ownership rate of well over 50% and no license needed for open or concealed carry, meaning that there's no telling how many onlookers are carrying firearms, why would anyone try to intimidate an unknown but potentially overwhelming opposing force with two rifles?
Mad at who? If I showed up at a Tea Party rally with my SKS and Obama T-shirt, how would that go down?
It was written by those who fought and killed the very people that rule our nation now. But now the second amendment is used by those criminals to intimidate, blackmail, and threaten those who would act for the good of the people instead of making them kill each other and makign them fear phantoms the traitors invented.
I think that you mean that they use firearms to intimidate, blackmail, and threaten. The activities listed are all illegal, and if someone does them to you, you should immediately call someone with a firearm to come do something about it. The phone number for them is 911.
I see by your first sentence that you're a Royalist or Tory. You should probably know, then, that by 1776, even royalists and Tories were unhappy with their government for imposing high taxes and removing elected governments and appointing new ones.
So, just to be clear: it was written by those who fought and killed to overthrow their former government for good cause, and written so that any future government inclined to provide similar cause could be restrained from imposing them on a state. You can find an enumeration of these causes in the Declaration of Independence.
As an American, if you are one, you should realize that all all governing power is vested in, and consequently derived form, the people. YOU, if you are an American, are the government. The guys in office are your employees, doing a job that you don't have time enough to do yourself.
The British rule our nation now?