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?
Is it that we fear words and ideas more than inarticulate rage? Is it that there's a soft spot in the American heart for racist simmer? Do armed he-men exhibitionists require maternal coddling? Have we forgotten that four American presidents have been assassinated? Have we crossed the line that separates debate and disagreement from civil war?
Just asking. I don't think we have, but I do think we could. Guns are, indeed, speech: Carry one and you can't help but make an aggressive statement about what you believe and what you are capable of doing. A gun that goes off is something else again, however. It hardly matters whether the firing is accidental or intentional, because the consequences always have the potential to eclipse, tragically, the limited intentions -- the "speech" -- of the shooter.
My prayer is that we find the courage to grope for our common future together, and that the invisible infrastructure of public respect remains intact. This means we must check our weapons, but not our ideas, as we enter the debate.
(Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at koehlercw@gmail.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.)
© 2009 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
I do wish the Secret Service would "violate" the 1st and 2nd Amendment rights of these indiscretionate loons by hauling them away in the interst of national security.
Have you forgotten that none of those assassins were openly carrying guns and waving signs around? It's pretty obvious why they were not doing so, because that would draw obvious attention to yourself.
If you want to kill the president, openly displaying your gun and waving signs is the worst way to go about doing it.
Fanned.
Go ahead and stay in that absurd little world of yours. It's not a place most of us want anything to do with.
Reminds one of the 60-70's when we had our heads bashed in for Peace Marches...
I'll tell you one thing that I think would NOT be best for America's future... BANKRUPTCY.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hQrQoqnHoz2ywPKt_3Dvj8TjBDZAD9A1GARG0
Today, if all those protestors who showed up at a town hall with anti Obama signs yelling obscenities would be likewise forced into a Free Speech Zone, you can bet that Fox and all the rest of the corporate media wold be covering it and editorializing about how wrong it is and how evil Obama is for having such a thing. Fairness Doctrine anyone?
Totally opposed to the fairness doctrine though. If implemented on the radio, could lead to implementation on television and on the internet. Bottom line, it was deemed unconstitutional a long time ago.
Not at all.
The people toting guns at the demonstrations are doing it to make a statement, that’s the simple fact. You ask “why a gunâ€, because Obama is perceived as a gun grabber. If Obama was against, let me say “ice creamâ€, I would surely expect people outside the rally holding up their ice cream cones making a statement. You probably think ice cream is a lot different than a rifle, a rifle can kill you and ice cream can’t. Sane rationality would say yes, but in New York City they would say ice cream kills too, because of all those Trans Fats. So all said, don’t be scared on the gun toting protesters, they are just exercising their 1st and 2nd Bill of Rights.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x91e3a_ren-and-stimpy-space-madness_fun
Ren & Stimpy in "Space Madness"
I'm not anti-gun, I own them. But I'm not stupid enough to take one to a town hall meeting!
Sometimes ignorance breeds contempt, you're seeing it at these meetings.
Guns, and even an assassination, are not a huge danger to progressives as a movement. Just a change of leadership to Biden.
If the righty haters were to do the awful thing they are implying by bringing their guns, they would actually do grave harm to their own cause, and to the permissive gun laws they so love. They would show the logical conclusions of their hate speech and actions.
I would make this statement for anybody that went to protest what they think is wrong. The difference with you is that you are blinded by political bias. You think that a gun owner is automatically a Conservative, I think not.
Take my comparison. 120 years ago carrying a gun on any street in America was the social norm. Over time carrying a gun on the street went against that social norm. I would say that was a "progressive" movement for non-gun owners, true. Today, carrying a gun on the streets is not the social norm, true, but today there is a "progressive" movement towards open carry in public. Do you think 120 years ago that all gun carriers where "evil" conservative, I would guess not? Before you quote a ant-gun stat. With more gun laws that where created over that last 120 years, more people per population die today of gun related deaths then they did 120 years ago. I would ask you to look it up, but your hate for me is probably blinding you once more.
Finally, "progressive" "not progressive" that’s just a label for somebody that likes to argue semantics.