Man carrying assault weapon attends Obama protest

AP ^ | 08/17/2009 | AMANDA LEE MYERS and TERRY TANG

[Man50D]

If the circumstances do not warrant carrying a weapon, open-carry is just a massage for your ego...

If is the operative word. As we have seen over the last several years a seemingly unwarranted situation in which to carry a gun can change in an instant, without warning, to a fully warranted situation if some madman suddenly opens fire.

Open-carry defeats the purpose of carrying a weapon in a largely peaceful urban environment; namely, the element of surprise if a confrontation arises.

People legally carry an open weapon will send a visual message to anyone illegally carrying a weapon for nefarious purposes that he or she will also be in harms way because people will return fire.

If you’re openly carrying your rifle or pistol when the bank robbery or classroom shooting goes down, you’re just going to be the first person who takes one in the chest.

A bank robber will think twice before shooting if he or she spots someone or some people carrying weapons. The same would apply to classroom setting if the students are of age to carry weapons(college or adult education classes) otherwise the example is irrelevant since the students would be underage to carry a weapon.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Good luck in your DU spelunking. ;)

Ewww. Now that you put it that way, I ain't interested.

[DouglasKC]

I'm not saying either thing. What I'm saying is that making a show of firearms at an ostensibly peaceful assembly is, at best, a symbolic and narcissistic gesture meaningful largely to the bearer's ego, and, at worst, is asking for an escalation in what are already becoming tense situations. When tempers flare, how could anyone be sure that something tragic wouldn't happen? All it would take is one freaked-out gunstore commando to fire at an approaching crowd (accidentally or in a panic) and whatever political progress that's been made by the town hall protestors until now would be instantly reversed.

Well there you go again. What about the guns worn by the police at these events? All it takes is one freaked out cop to fire at an approaching crowd...etc. etc. etc.

I think that people who own and carry their guns to these gatherings own them legally. I think they're responsible. I think they're safe. I don't think they're a threat or anything to worry about.

Leftists are going to criticize and find a reason to discredit these protests with or without people having gusn NEAR these areas. A continuous retreat in response to leftist propaganda is not the way to advance the conservative agenda.

[justiceseeker93]

THIS GUY WAS AN OCARE SUPPORTER!!!

No he was not! The man with the semi-automatic rifle was interviewed in a video available on Yahoo! News (where this was a feature story). He clearly stated he was there to exercise his second amendment right to bear arms and to protest against O's health care plan.

BTW, the MSM didn't mention it in their story (it doesn't fit the template), but this rifle-toting protester happens to be black.

[The Right Way 1776]

Obvoiusly I’m not saying 0bama would nuke the US. I’m just illistrating the sheer unethical power the federal government has over its citizens.

Jeez why do you think I joined a site called “Free Republic”.

[The Right Way 1776]

“Perhaps, although if they have 3 round burst M-16s, they’d aren’t all that much ahead. Meanwhile there are way, way more of us. Numbers count.”

Yeah I suppose if a civil war were to break out, we would take them (the DEA) down hands down, but it would still be a bloody clash.

[Turborules]

Hell yea!

[justiceseeker93]

I for one value and support our Second Amendment rights, but don't think it's appropriate to carry firearms to town hall meetings and to make a show of it, even if it's perfect legal.

The fact is that individual with the semi-automatic rifle is Phoenix was not at the town hall meeting.

In a later version of your posted AP article, there is this addition:

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said armed demonstrators in open-carry states such as Arizona and New Hampshire have little impact on security plans for the president. "In both cases, the subject was not entering our site or attempting to," Donovan said. "They were in a designated public viewing area. The main thing to know is that they would not have been allowed inside with a weapon."

[mad_as_he$$]

YES HE WAS!

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?referrerid=&t=340939

[justiceseeker93]

I got to the URL you posted in # 189 and found nothing to support your argument. Perhaps you can get me a quote from the man with the rifle in Phoenix.

[US Navy Vet]

Doesn’t anyone here think that it was kinda wierd to see a guy carrying a M-4 Carbine clone in a crowd. A .45 ACP or 9mm Pistol or pepper spray would have been FAR more effective. Something does not smell right here.

[OneWingedShark]

>Thank you for your service to this country.

You are welcome.

>You are correct in one respect; the current administration, democrats and RINOs, are a direct, barely adulterated threat to our Constitution.

I personally think that the majority of Congress, the Executive, and the USSC should be tried for treason, negligence, and/or corruption.

>Please let me know how the right to own a weapon will “soon vanish” if we restrain ourselves from open-carry.

Ok, I live in New Mexico, an open-carry state. {The state Constitution even prohibits Counties and Municipalities from regulating firearms.} I can give you two de facto examples:

Several months ago I went into a Burger King after buying an old 22 rifle. I’d brought the weapon with me because I didn’t want to leave it in my truck... so I went in ordered, sat my gun down on the table in front of me (barrel toward the wall) and ate my food and read a bit of a book I was working on at the time. As I was finishing the Assistant Manager came up to me and said that the weapon “was scaring people” and that it wasn’t legal for me to have it in the restaurant. (A lie, because of the aforementioned Constitutional barring of infringing city/county ordinances.) Since I was already finished, I simply left, though in retrospect maybe it would have been better to have asked to see the manager and tell them that I don;t enjoy being lied to about the law and shown them my copy of the state constitution (Art 2, Sec 6).

Another incident was with the tea party’s security. I happened to bring along a plastic sparring-sword, not even a real weapon, and was turned away by security even though the protest was being held on public property... the irritating thing was that the guy ‘agreed’ with me and yet insisted that “weapons aren’t allowed” and “there’s a police station across the street”.

So, even though I DO have the right to open-carry, technically & legally speaking, socially I do not. (And this is New Mexico, you don’t get much more ‘out west’ than this.)

Also, given that attitude and a populist push, it may come down to a federal law being passed to restrict said rights.

>Every example you offer differs from 2A in one giant, glaring respect; they do not have the guaranteed potential for taking human life, and they do not have tens of millions of armed, frustrated citizens ready to defend that right.

What is life when anyone, or even a ‘protected’ group of people, can deprive you of other rights? What justice is there when someone can rob another person and be held legal and acceptable in court? [Keelo v. New England] What value does such an entity [government] place on life? Two examples, here in America and in my lifetime, spring to mind: Ruby Ridge and Waco.

With Waco the branch Dividian was within its rights and pushed into its compound by Janet Reno’s ‘task force.’ The end-result was almost a hundred American lives, many of them children, lost at the hands of ‘official action’ by the government. (The book Constitutional Chaos has a lot of information on this, and other incidents with the government and its agents acting in illegal manner.)

Another incident, perhaps relevant, would be the Tiananmen Square Protests in China. The government had to call in military forces from elsewhere to perform the massacre because the local military-forces would not... there could be a psychological link/similarity in the calling of ATF/FBI into the Waco situation, as well as the FBI in the Ruby Ridge situation.

Our legislators, and our enemies, are well aware of what firearms are designed to do.

[SunkenCiv]

thanks justiceseeker93.

and thanks neverdem for this ping:

Talking to the Man Who Brought a Gun to an Obama Event
thefastertimes.com | 17 August, 2009 | Oliver Miller
Posted on 08/18/2009 5:27:07 AM PDT by marktwain
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2318567/posts