Literally up in arms about healthcare

[bascule]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/pistol-packing-protester-causes-worry-about-obamas-safety/article1248726/

 

Concerns about his safety are mounting in the midst of a tense summer that has seen mobs of angry demonstrators showing up to protest against his health-care plans – including a man openly carrying a pistol Tuesday in New Hampshire, where the President held a town hall meeting on health care.

 

It's legal to carry holstered weapons in the state, so long as they're not concealed. The man was also waving a sign that read “It is time to water the tree of liberty,” a reference to the Thomas Jefferson quote: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

 

I'm all for the right to peaceably carry weapons, but I really have to say that taking a gun to a protest is in bad form.

 

I'm also concerned that this person is literally up in arms about healthcare reform. Why does he feel so passionately about it that he feels he needs to imply that there's some tyrants who need to be killed for the sake of liberty?

[Pangloss]

I wish I knew.

 

I have a conservative friend who used to regularly put forth the notion that there should be no Secret Service detail and the president should be more vulnerable to attack because the concept of democracy requires a realistic chance to overthrow the government if desired. He never quite seemed to understand my response that individual assailants don't often represent the will of the people. Fortunately he's a religious pacifist and doesn't own a gun. (Yeah, I know. Go figure.)

[Mokele]

This has happened more than once, including not one but TWO guys with a freaking ASSAULT RIFLES outside a town hall with Obama today

[Saryctos]

This has happened more than once, including not one but TWO guys with a freaking ASSAULT RIFLES outside a town hall with Obama today

 

But were they loaded with baby killing bullets?

[bascule]

This has happened more than once, including not one but TWO guys with a freaking ASSAULT RIFLES outside a town hall with Obama today

 

Assault rifles? What's wrong with these people...

 

(EDIT: okay, I actually read the article, and FWIW the AR-15 semi-auto is technically not an assault rifle, but the point still stands)

Edited August 18, 2009 by bascule

[iNow]

Assault rifles? What's wrong with these people...

 

They're pathetic insecure little imps who have been roused by manufactured fear. Their patriotism and love of their country is apparently so profound that they don't want their fellow citizens to have healthcare. As long as we're killing the environment, polluting, doing the bidding of large industries and private healthcare companies they will be dormant and content. However, the moment you try to make a change which actually has a chance at improving peoples lives and reducing suffering, then it's time to stand up and start shooting people for what you believe in.

[Mokele]

But were they loaded with baby killing bullets?

 

Do regular bullets not work on babies? Are they werewolf babies or something?

[padren]

Do regular bullets not work on babies? Are they werewolf babies or something?

 

Maybe there was a

[DJBruce]

I highly doubt that these people where even considering shooting at anything, yet alone the president, in order to stop the passage of healthcare reform. In my opinion it was more than likely simply an attempt to scare people and an attempt to increase the power of their message, which worked as it became a national story.

 

That being said these persons' behaviour is completely inappropriate, untasteful, and unamerican. America is founded on the idea that issues should be fair and civilized debated with everyone having an opportunity to speak their mind. The carrying of weapons into such a debate disrupts the debate and uses scare tactics to stifle the voice of others. I find it incredibly sad that our country has come to this.

[The Bear's Key]

They're pathetic insecure little imps who have been roused by manufactured fear. Their love of politician's ruses and fantasized version of America tainted by a politically invented reality is apparently so profound that they don't want their fellow citizens to have healthcare. As long as we're killing the environment, polluting, doing the bidding of large industries and private healthcare companies they will be dormant and content. However, the moment you try to make a change which actually has a chance at improving peoples lives and reducing suffering, then it's time to stand up and start shooting people for what you believe in.

corrected

[Sisyphus]

I highly doubt that these people where even considering shooting at anything, yet alone the president, in order to stop the passage of healthcare reform. In my opinion it was more than likely simply an attempt to scare people and an attempt to increase the power of their message, which worked as it became a national story.

 

Somehow I don't think they thought it through that clearly, or had any particular plan, shooting anyone or "making a statement" or whatever. Some guys just bring guns to an angry mob.

[padren]

So, could someone just pace back and forth, in front of the school that guy's kids go to with an assault rifle?

 

Could I stand next to him at the town hall meeting site, and ask if he minds having snipers trained on his head, pull out a sheet of packing paper bubbles and follow that question with "Do I make you nervous?"

 

It just seems like a really bad recipe. Especially if anti-abortionists and the like start getting into it.

[iNow]

TIME magazine did a nice piece on this issue:

 

 

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1917356,00.html

"It's hard enough to protect the President, and this is not helpful." [Former Secret Service agent Joseph Petro] pauses. "We are not a Third World country."

 

While protesters in certain states may have the right to carry weapons to spots near presidential visits — and the Secret Service may blanket the President with protection — Petro says the guns' presence changes the atmosphere surrounding such events. "They're intimidating people like it's a western saloon," he says. And the weapons could turn a verbal clash between demonstrators into a shootout. "In a heated atmosphere," Petro argues, "it's a recipe for disaster." Most critical, according to Petro, author of

Standing Next to History: An Agent's Life Inside the Secret Service

, is the message the guns send. "These guys aren't going to shoot the President," he says of the protesters. "But it's putting the idea in some nut's head that maybe he can get a gun and try to shoot him."

 

<...>

 

Paul Helmke, who heads the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, says such an act "endangers all in attendance" and that even if their action is legal, "common sense" should dictate that gun owners keep their weapons away from such gatherings. "Loaded weapons at political forums endanger all involved, distract law enforcement and end up stifling debate," he says. "Presidential protesters need to leave their firearms at home — no exceptions."