I turned my TV off long ago.

… if state laws allow, which is quite reasonable.

Such is the headline from the Washington Post. All in response to the “law-abiding citizen with a gun somewhere in the vicinity of the President” stuff that’s been going on lately. Commented on here and here. (h/t to Joe Huffman)

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.”

Exactly. As mentioned previously, the folks in Arizona were totally within legal bounds, worked with the local police. They were far more upstanding citizens in their actions than most protesters tend to be.

Of course, Paul Helmke voiced his expected hysteria:

“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.”

So, following the law is wrong. Thanx, Paul. I’ll keep that in mind for the future.

And you’re saying that these law-abiding and right-exercising citizens need more babysitting than other folks at the event? Why? Oh that’s right, they have a gun and thus are immediately dangerous and scary. Funny how those folks in Arizona didn’t turn the event into the bloodbath that Helmke apparently predicts is imminent.

I fail to see who was endangered (other than Helmke’s agenda and job). Even the Secret Service said that there’s no danger.

If guns are so dangerous, I guess we should disarm the police and the Secret Service too. If guns are bad, then guns are bad. If people are endangered by the mere presence of lead and steel and levers and springs, then they’re endangered period. But you see, that’s the kicker. It’s not the gun that’s good or bad, it’s the person using the tool. Guns in the hands of good people do good. Guns in the hand of bad people do bad. It’s not the inanimate object, it’s the person. So we just had a bunch of good people out there doing good, but apparently somehow that endangers folks.

Frankly, the White House saying what they did was the best and really only move they could make. That is, they uphold the law.

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.

So everyone’s in a tizzy about the folks showing up open carrying at some Obama event.

About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle…

Because as we know, scary looking guns are more dangerous than non-scary looking guns.

He said he’s never heard of someone bringing an assault weapon near a presidential event. “The larger the gun, the more menacing the situation,” he said.

There’s a “penis size compensation” joke in there somewhere.

“To me, this is craziness,” [Paul Helmke] said. “When you bring a loaded gun, particularly a loaded assault rifle, to any political event, but particularly to one where the president is appearing, you’re just making the situation dangerous for everyone.”

Yeah. I guess all the cops and Secret Service guys, bringing all their weaponry, that makes it dangerous for everyone. Well, there was that video floating around a week or two ago where someone was claiming a Secret Service agent in the back of a car was pointing a rifle at the crowd. I shall go get my tinfoil hat now.

To be honest, all of this reeks of ignorant hysteria. People that don’t understand guns, that are afraid of guns and people that own guns, and Paul Helmke who has his agenda to push. It’s just ignorance and fear. Gain some education — like I did — and you’ll find out that things aren’t as bad as you make them out to be.

In this particular case, these guys are out to make a political point. What that point is I’m not sure, but basically they are out exercising their First Amendment rights. The key thing about 1A and “freedom of speech” is precisely to protect unpopular speech. So what these people were doing is quite fine from a legal perspective. To abridge what they were doing would be a dangerous and unconstitutional thing. They were peaceful, no one was harmed, no laws were broken. I think the only bad thing that happened was some people may have pooped in their pants and got hysterical, and that or any other sort of “being offended” is not reason enough to abridge any sort of activity these people were involved in. The President was in no true danger (even the Secret Service commented accordingly in the article).

That said, while it might be legal and certainly all aspects Constitutionally protected, I personally feel what they did was poor judgment. What message are they trying to send? I liken this to PETA. While I agree we shouldn’t be cruel to animals, PETA takes a radical approach to their message and that turns off a great number of people. If you want to win people to your side, you have to consider who you want to win, and who you’re willing to lose. Maybe you only want to attract other radicals, but realize in doing so you are going to marginalize yourself from the majority. If you’re willing to do this, that’s fine. The key thing is to know your audience. Unfortunately in this case, the situation gets blown wildly out of proportion and I think may serve to have unintended side-effects on the greater scale. Most people are going to look at this — and how the typically gun-unfriendly media will portray it — and think that all gun owners are kooks. We’re not. But we’re going to get lumped in with the guys and it sets back a great many things.

Sebastian chimes in with similar sentiments.

I wish I knew exactly why these guys chose to do what they did. That might lend some better insight into the matter. I’m not satisfied with “exercising our 1A and/or 2A rights” because it was an explicit choice to leave the house with an AR-15 strapped over your shoulder and to attend a protest outside an Obama event. You’re trying to make a point. What’s your point?

Updated: Murdoc has more. What’s more interesting is that these folks were not just law-abiding, but coordinated. They took time to work with the local police, there was a Secret Security detail. These folks were accomodating, polite, working with law enforcement, colored within the lines… gosh, they handled things much better than most protesters. But hey, let’s not let this get in the way of a good round of PSH.

Updated 2: The black man with the gun speaks. (h/t SayUncle)

Well, I understand his point now. In general I’m in agreement with it. As for the AR, it was a simple thing. Attention. He carried the rifle, it attracted attention. That’s all it was being used for folks: a prop. And it worked. Everyone is talking about it. All the news media is buzzing about it. He wanted attention, he got the attention.

I do find it funny tho. It’s an educated black man, with a gun. How different would it have been if it was a redneck white guy? Or a more “urban” African-American? I think the media is having a tough time with this one. I notice in the AP article that there’s no mention of the “man with a gun” being a “black man with a gun.”

Updated 3: Further thoughts, part 2.

Updated 4: White House response. OK, going try to stop updating this post and just updating the later related posts. 🙂