NH - Man Open Carries At Obama's Speech!

[mgregg85]

I'm glad he wasn't busted but it sure sounds like he wanted to be. I would have considered that sign threatening if I was guarding the president. I'm willing to bet he had a secret service guy watching him the whole time.

 

[velojym]

If I were guarding the prez (any of the ones in my lifetime) I'd have practiced "duck and cover" quite a lot.

...they obviously wouldn't have hired me.

 

[rbernie]

Threats are illegal. The threat this man made inheres in the COMBINATION of several things:

He was armed with a deadly weapon.
He was carrying a sign indicating that tyrants need to be killed for the good of the republic.
He was in proximity to someone he considers a tyrant.

You are arguing presumed INTENT and not reality. Fortunately the 'thought police' are not quite among us yet.

To use the 'fire' analogy correctly in application to this situation, he would have had to be carrying a sign stating his intention to kill the president. He did not. You are stretching the truth to suggest what you FEAR - that he (and his sign) were bona fide threats.

Fortunately for him (and sadly for your argument), both the local LEO and the USS protective detail did not believe him to be a credible threat. Since they were there, and you and I were not, I will presume that they were in a better position to determine if this was a bona-fide threat or not.

In the end, he did nothing illegal, was not adjudicated as a threat to anyone, and he actually managed to get his point across. We may not all agree with his point, much less his means, but the fact remains that at least he demonstrated that it is possible to be openly armed in public without being nutzoid or a raving threat. The more that the anti-RKBA folks hyperventilate over this, the more that they actually present that argument for us.

 

[Reid73]

I am a strong believer that goading law enforcement into an inevitable reaction is bad PR for the millions of responsible gun owners in the US. Seems like the local police in New Hampshire are pretty supportive of the RKBA until the law abiding citizen includes a veiled threat of violence. What then can happen is entirely predictable and offers yet another opportunity for the average citizen to discount our message as responsible gun owners.

I feel the same way about the goth teenager who walks around in a black t-shirt with the word F**K in big block letters. The constitution gives them the right to do it, but I don't like it and it forces me to turn away and stereotype all goth kids as jerks.

I agree 100%.

This fellow was exercising his legal rights; which is fine. He was also deliberately provoking and giving ammunition to those who wish to eliminate such rights; which is not cool.

And threats of violence, however implicit, are simply not on.

 

[velojym]

The constitution gives them the right to do it

Careful, there. This is a misunderstanding the grabbers want us to embrace, and many freedom-loving folks are giving in to it, maybe without even realizing it. Once enough people have accepted that it's the government that grants rights, it'll follow pretty handily that they may also delete them.
Yeah, it sounds nitpicky, but folks need to be reminded that the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are pre-existing, rather than being merely granted by that document.

 

[ChristopherG]

Okay, RB, well stated. As far as local LE, I'm frankly assuming that the guy had a prior conversation with them. OC is perfectly legal (though not very common) in my state, but I will say without any doubt that, here, he would have swiftly been placed in 'investigative detention.' Maybe allowed to do his thing afterward--but not just showing up cold with a gun and that sign.

How about if instead of calling his combined actions a THREAT, we call them an INCITEMENT to imminent lawless action?

Would it be a 'misreading' of this man's action if someone were to draw inspiration from it and shoot the President? And if the answer to that is "no" (as I think it is), then isn't it an INCITEMENT?

 

[Lou McGopher]

Does anyone dispute what the man's message really was? Regardless of the quotation's noble heritage, IN THIS CONTEXT, it was either a summons or a threat to kill the President of the United States, was it not? And a legal right exercised in the wrong context is no longer legal; examples should be easy to imagine.

The quote is, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

The man's sign read, "It is time to water the tree of liberty."

Not sure how watering a tree is equatable to spreading manure around it. For those unfamiliar, manure and water are not the same thing, so it could be argued he's not really referencing the Jefferson quote.

For all we know based on that information, this man wants our military to invade another country.

His message really is vague. He might as well have held up a sign that read, "It's time to get medieval on some ass," and it would have made about as much sense.

 

[Mr_Rogers]

A strange quirk here is that allowing the individual to walk around with a sign and a gun actually can, and will, be used to show that the Obama administration is not anti-gun or anti-liberty.

You can bet that within seconds of this man being seen the word was all around the area. SOMEBODY, somebody VERY high up decided not to intercept, SOMEBODY took a heck of a lot of responsibility. My guess is that somebody made a very politically calculated decision. The secret service would have wanted this man out and the area locked down. The secret service would have to have spoken to someone in the Presidential party about the threat. SOMEBODY said no.

 

[velojym]

I think they really knew, deep down, than a legally open-carrying fellow was not really a threat. Besides, they have snipers anyway. If the Chosen One was threatened by anyone else, this poor guy may have gotten tagged regardless.

 

[USAFRetired]

Mr Rodgers:

Very good observation! No one on this forum will dispute the notion that the Obama camp has some VERY savy players

 

[Col. Plink]

That guy was just interviewed on Alex Jones' radio show. Good news source, always gives his citations and has the experts on to talk on economics, etc.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

Does anyone know how close the Secret Service let this guy get to the President?

 

[rbernie]

That's three edits in a row, removing poly tick comments. Some of y'all are working hard to get this thread shut down, and I'd prefer that you not.

 

[jakemccoy]

geniusiknowit,

On Hardball, the man admitted that his inspiration for the sign came from Jefferson's quote. Plus, there was that recognizable snake emblem.

By the way, there is some good discussion here, let's try to keep this thread open, people. The legal discussion is particularly useful.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

What if he had shown up carrying a sign reading "sic semper tyrannus"... would that be any worse than the Jefferson paraphrase?

 

[Superlite27]

It always falls back on intent.

Can anyone guess what his intent in going there OC was? I can. He stated it on MSNBC. As a political statement.

Last time I checked, making political statements was legal. 1st Amendment.....about the 2nd Amendment.

Yelling "FIRE" in a crowded theater is the classic example.

Once again....INTENT. The intent of someone yelling "fire" is to cause public disturbance.

The intent here was clearly to exercise his right to carry, and do so in a manner to make a statement. (It is this statement that keeps getting brought up and argued about. What is meant by "watering the tree....etc. This is irrellevant. Not only irrellevant to the gun discussions here at THR, it's irrellevant...period.)

If he had held the sign without the firearm, nobody would have even noticed. But, since he was OC'ing WOW! Now we're arguing that OC'ing is a threat!

I thought the purpose we are united on was to defend the right to keep and bear arms? By trying to insinuate that this responsible citizen who is merely making a statement is a big bad criminal, you fall right into the anti's hands.

They want you to think this guy is bad.

Too bad there are some here who agree. How sad.

 

[MisterMike]

We may not all agree with his point, much less his means, but the fact remains that at least he demonstrated that it is possible to be openly armed in public without being nutzoid or a raving threat. The more that the anti-RKBA folks hyperventilate over this, the more that they actually present that argument for us.

I honestly don't think I'd have done what this guy did, but I think this is the appropriate way to address this. While the MSNBC commentators were hyperventilating over the fact that the guy had a gun, the irrefutable fact is that he did nothing to threaten the President or any other person.

I think this also illustrates the danger in conceding any portion of a fundamental right, such as the RKBA, to the concerns of handwringers in any particular situation. The logic would go like this: if the Second Amendment is diminished in the presence of a Presidential visit, maybe we should be worried when a congressman is in town. Then, perhaps the fact that an alderman lives down the street becomes a justification to disarm others. And so it builds, until each and every concern about the potential for the misuse of a gun is sufficient to prohibit being armed.

The term is overused, but it really is a slippery slope to concede that the right to be armed should be constrained in any particular set of circumstances.

 

[velojym]

What if he had shown up carrying a sign reading "sic semper tyrannus"... would that be any worse than the Jefferson paraphrase?

At the very least, they're admitting that Big O is either a tyrant, or for some reason a large chunk of the populace is somehow seeing him as one... and probably for good reason.

 

[Lone_Gunman]

The logic would go like this: if the Second Amendment is diminished in the presence of a Presidential visit, maybe we should be worried when a congressman is in town. Then, perhaps the fact that an alderman lives down the street becomes a justification to disarm others. And so it builds, until each and every concern about the potential for the misuse of a gun is sufficient to prohibit being armed.

I think it would make the job of the Secret Service more difficult if more people were armed at presidential events, and lead to them recommending that the President not go out in public. Do we really want to isolate the president more than he already is?

It is his right to show up armed if he wants, but I think he was being intentionally inflammatory. I do not think the Secret Service should let an unknown protestor get anywhere near a POTUS while armed.

 

[TravisB]

Does anyone really have any doubt that this guy considers Obama a tyrant?

I don't think he did anything that could (or should) get him convicted in a court of law -- it's not a crime to send a vague message that you're getting almost angry enough to participate in armed revolution.

But come on, we all know that his demonstration was an anti-Obama message with an intentionally violent undertone.

It will be interesting to see if open-carry by protesters becomes a trend. The most motivated and active political protesters in our country right now are the Tea Partiers, and I'd guess there's a considerable amount of gun ownership in their ranks. What if political protesters routinely decide to strap on sidearms (where legal) to go out and march? At what point will "armed mob" become an accurate description?

 

[rbernie]

Anyone who thinks that this is a unique approach should go back and research the Black Panthers and their interactions with the California State Legislature on/about May 2nd, 1967. We can reputedly thank this armed protest, in part, for the sweeping Gun Control Act passed one year later (although clearly the assassinations of MLK and Bobby Kennedy gave real political high cover to the GCA). The difference between that example and this is the nature of the protest, and the degree of perceived threat.

My point is that this instance is an example of how to do it properly, in that he refrained from any overt threats in his actions while still presenting himself as a supporter of the RKBA.

 

[velojym]

How many folks just automatically assume that merely carrying a defensive tool constitutes a threat to anyone?

...and does exercising one Constitutionally "protected" right negate any of the others?

 

[Erik M]

Just think, if a group of individuals like this man were to behave like Cindy Sheehan during early years of the second term of the Bush administration. This guy and 20 supporters all open carrying, living in tents and carrying picket signs in front of the white house. Would the media protray thier cause in a righteous light like they did Sheehan?

 

[jakemccoy]

The man's demonstration had an intentionally strong undertone. It was not a "violent" undertone.

The man was standing front and center and expressing the Second Amendment in a real world 3-D example. Whenever someone does that, it takes strength because most of the public is not used to seeing an actual utilization of the right to bear arms.

This man was literally bearing arms. Listen to the Hardball interview. How many people today have the strength to bear arms openly? Few people do. Most people approach the Second Amendment at an angle, rather than straight on. For example, most people talk about carrying a gun for self-defense. That's not exactly what the Second Amendment is about.

 

[Lou McGopher]

On Hardball, the man admitted that his inspiration for the sign came from Jefferson's quote.

Yes, but that was after his protest.

Plus, there was that recognizable snake emblem.

That emblem is not directly related to the quote.

Gadsden Flag

Furthermore... whatever happened to "We need the Second Amendment to guarantee the respect for the other nine?" Or, "without the right to bear arms, we can't ensure our other rights?" Is there something inherently wrong about exercising two rights at once? There was nothing threatening about his actions or speech. His weapon was idle by his side, and his speech nothing but a vague metaphor.

Jefferson was making that quote in reference to overthrowing the government, just like this man was.

Jefferson was referring to Shays' Rebellion, not overthrowing the govt.

"God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure."