This started as an update to this post, but it got long enough that I felt it deserved its own posting. If you haven’t read the original posting, go back and read it first.

Linoge chimes in with a different perspective. Reading his take, then going back and looking at my initial reaction on it, I guess I am reevaluating things.

First, I do agree that a right not exercised is a right lost. Plus, I also had, but didn’t initially express, some similar feelings to the notion of carrying a gun being “normal” or not, but Linoge put it well:

Simply put, a right not exercised is a right well and truly lost. It is not “normal” for citizens to carry rifles because citizens do not carry rifles, and citizens do not carry rifles because it is not “normal”. Now, when given the option of first changing the definition of “normal” by words alone, or first carrying rifles, which do you think will actually result in honest change?

If we all carried guns and rifles out in the open all day long every day, no one would care. This is only a “scary” event because it is out of the norm, and because the media wants to burst into hysterics. Again tho I think it was probably well-played that the man carrying the AR was a well-dressed, educated, and Libertarian black man… kinda throws a wrench in the works of those that thrive on “gun nut hysteria” and blaming the white rednecks and “birthers” for all the woes. 🙂

Now having seen the video of the man in his own words and what they were up to, it’s obvious they did it purely for the attention it would grab. Upon further reflection, it was well-played for that aspect because it did succeed. I’m still not convinced it was the best avenue to take. This is now going back to my college education in speech communication and my graduate school teaching of public speaking: again, know your audience. Was this the right device for getting your message across? What side-effects would use of this device have? Linoge makes a good point:

Let us be honest: the press and the anti-rights advocates (but I repeat myself) are going to to demonize us no matter what we do, so we might as well exercise our rights and educate people while we can. All the better that Chris was able to both simultaneously.

This is true. Plus if you consider how “shock value” works, it only works the first time and subsequent times the impact is less until it’s just normal. Look at Elvis and his pelvis. Look at heavy metal music (being on VH-1 proves Marilyn Manson is not considered a dangerous threat any more). Going back to Linoge’s prior point, if more and more people openly carry firearms, the shock goes down, it becomes the norm.

What was the intended goal? If the goal was to promote 2A rights, you can do that all day every day. To come and carry openly at an Obama event given how high tensions are running in this country already, it just adds to the tension and IMHO is out to do more than promoting 2A rights. Now if the guy carries that AR around every day, I might think differently; that is, he’s just going about his business the same as it always was and it only looks odd because we’re only seeing this small slice of his life. But if he doesn’t do that every day, then the actions were quite explicitly chosen and again… why? Is that meeting your goals? That’s still a bit of an unanswered question, even after watching the video.

Linoge’s perspective is a welcome perspective. I think some of the other “think of how that looks” perspectives are still valid too. As I originally stated, I do think much of this is still based upon ignorant hysterics from folks like Helmke and the rarely-gun-friendly media who also knows that hysterics sells. It’d be welcome to see if “Libertarian black man with an AR” offers up any further explanation for his actions. Not that he has to justify anything, but I’m curious to understand his course of action and to evaluate if it was really a successful and good means towards achieving his ends or not. It’s still unknown.

Updated: White House response.

Updated 2: Sebastian clarifies his sentiments, and I think he too makes good points.

If we are to win this struggle, it will have to be through common American values, and there I think we have a lot more to work with than the other side.  But I don’t think there’s any context in which most people can understand taking a loaded rifle to a political rally.  I think we’re lucky if most people are taking this for the publicity stunt that it is.  In that context, most people can probably understand it and dismiss it.  But political violence is a touchy thing for most of the public, and there’s no appeal to it that’s going to find acceptance.  Gun rights has to be a mainstream issue if it’s going to win out in the end.  If it’s seen as a fringe issue, exercised by “dangerous” people, we’re going to suffer for it over the long run.