This gentleman, "exercising his 2nd amendment rights," outside of an appearance by President Obama, was not arrested. His weapon was loaded.Others have gone packing to health care policy rallies, even being beseeched to do so by the right-wing media.
As Logan Murphy noted today, at Crooks & Liars:
There have been a number of right wing protesters showing up at Democratic town hall meetings with guns over the past couple of weeks, even at events held by President Obama. Many have made note that countless people were shoved into cages called "free speech zones," or arrested at events held by former president George Bush for merely wearing anti-Bush t-shirts, yet people have been allowed to openly carry loaded weapons while protesting against Obama, for the most part without incident. How many of you have either posted or said aloud something along the lines of the following statement:
Can you imagine what would would have happened if a protester had brought a loaded gun to a Bush event?
Of course, that protester would have been tased, beaten, arrested and labeled a terrorist -- but times have changed:
Armed men seen mixing with protesters outside recent events held by President Obama acted within the law, the White House said Tuesday, attempting to allay fears of a security threat.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said people are entitled to carry weapons outside such events if local laws allow it. "There are laws that govern firearms that are done state or locally," he said. "Those laws don't change when the president comes to your state or locality."
Not everyone agrees:
"What Gibbs said is wrong," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "Individuals carrying loaded weapons at these events require constant attention from police and Secret Service officers. It's crazy to bring a gun to these events. It endangers everybody." Read on...
Personally, I believe it's just a matter of time before one of these gun-toting, Fox News-inspired whackjobs take a shot at the president or a Democratic member of Congress.
Here's a YouTube of a woman being arrested at a McCain-Palin event, merely for carrying a McCain=Bush sign:
Anyone who goes to Dimond High School this afternoon to hear Sen. Murkowski talk about and answer our questions about health care, should keep all this in perspective.
Typically, though, the teabaggers and Larouche nuts are only disrupting appearances by Democrats, as their behind-the-scenes controllers demand.