For instance, since it is legal in Texas to carry such firearms openly as long as the carrier is not a felon and does not aim the weapon at anyone (see http://www.lcav.org/states/newmexico.asp#carryi… for the current NM regulations), a group of Black Panthers carrying AK-47s and shotguns gathered at the Texas Republican Party’s state convention on June 16th 2000 to protest Texas Governor Gov. George W. Bush’s refusal to intervene in the pending execution of convicted murderer Gary Graham (video: http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=Gd…).

For what it might be worth the Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was established to promote African-American rights (and by extension their right to self-defense) and was active in the United States from the mid-1960s into the 1970s. In accordance with their belief in Mao Zedong's axiom that “political power grows out of the gun” thirty Party members with rifles and shotguns marched into the California State Assembly at Sacramento on May 2, 1967 to protest a proposed arms-control law. Previously the BPP had provided an armed escort for Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, at a San Francisco Bay Area speaking engagement. When the media got out of hand and law enforcement officers began to try to enforce order with their nightsticks the Panthers responded by chambering rounds into shotguns, which in that instance was threatening enough to prevent the situation from boiling over.

In any case it's worth noting that while the term 'hair trigger' describes a circumstance where the mechanism that actuates a firearm (the trigger) is such that it will set off the firearm when a very small pressure is applied, the term is also used to describe instability in the sense of responding to the slightest provocation or stimulation, as in a hair-trigger temper or reaction.

Reportedly one out four Americans own a gun and I would suggest that statistics indicate a predominate number of their owners are not irresponsible (AKA “trigger happy”) in the use of their firearms, which in my opinion as a gun owner does not under any circumstances extend to bringing a potentially deadly weapon to any public gathering – much less one charged with as much well orchestrated emotion (and thinly veiled racial hatred) as those concerning health care reform.

For instance, since it is legal in Texas to carry such firearms openly as long as the carrier is not a felon and does not aim the weapon at anyone (see http://www.lcav.org/states/newmexico.asp#carryi… for the current NM regulations), a group of Black Panthers carrying AK-47s and shotguns gathered at the Texas Republican Party’s state convention on June 16th 2000 to protest Texas Governor Gov. George W. Bush’s refusal to intervene in the pending execution of convicted murderer Gary Graham (video: http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=Gd…).

For what it might be worth the Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was established to promote African-American rights (and by extension their right to self-defense) and was active in the United States from the mid-1960s into the 1970s. In accordance with their belief in Mao Zedong's axiom that “political power grows out of the gun” thirty Party members with rifles and shotguns marched into the California State Assembly at Sacramento on May 2, 1967 to protest a proposed arms-control law. Previously the BPP had provided an armed escort for Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, at a San Francisco Bay Area speaking engagement. When the media got out of hand and law enforcement officers began to try to enforce order with their nightsticks the Panthers responded by chambering rounds into shotguns, which in that instance was threatening enough to prevent the situation from boiling over.

In any case it's worth noting that while the term 'hair trigger' describes a circumstance where the mechanism that actuates a firearm (the trigger) is such that it will set off the firearm when a very small pressure is applied, the term is also used to describe instability in the sense of responding to the slightest provocation or stimulation, as in a hair-trigger temper or reaction.

Reportedly one out four Americans own a gun and I would suggest that statistics indicate a predominate number of their owners are not irresponsible (AKA “trigger happy”) in the use of their firearms, which in my opinion as a gun owner does not under any circumstances extend to bringing a potentially deadly weapon to any public gathering – much less one charged with as much well orchestrated emotion (and thinly veiled racial hatred) as those concerning health care reform.

For instance, since it is legal in Texas to carry such firearms openly as long as the carrier is not a felon and does not aim the weapon at anyone (see http://www.lcav.org/states/newmexico.asp#carryi… for the current NM regulations), a group of Black Panthers carrying AK-47s and shotguns gathered at the Texas Republican Party’s state convention on June 16th 2000 to protest Texas Governor Gov. George W. Bush’s refusal to intervene in the pending execution of convicted murderer Gary Graham (video: http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=Gd…).

For what it might be worth the Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was established to promote African-American rights (and by extension their right to self-defense) and was active in the United States from the mid-1960s into the 1970s. In accordance with their belief in Mao Zedong's axiom that “political power grows out of the gun” thirty Party members with rifles and shotguns marched into the California State Assembly at Sacramento on May 2, 1967 to protest a proposed arms-control law. Previously the BPP had provided an armed escort for Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, at a San Francisco Bay Area speaking engagement. When the media got out of hand and law enforcement officers began to try to enforce order with their nightsticks the Panthers responded by chambering rounds into shotguns, which in that instance was threatening enough to prevent the situation from boiling over.

In any case it's worth noting that while the term 'hair trigger' describes a circumstance where the mechanism that actuates a firearm (the trigger) is such that it will set off the firearm when a very small pressure is applied, the term is also used to describe instability in the sense of responding to the slightest provocation or stimulation, as in a hair-trigger temper or reaction.

Reportedly one out four Americans own a gun and I would suggest that statistics indicate a predominate number of their owners are not irresponsible (AKA “trigger happy”) in the use of their firearms, which in my opinion as a gun owner does not under any circumstances extend to bringing a potentially deadly weapon to any public gathering – much less one charged with as much well orchestrated emotion (and thinly veiled racial hatred) as those concerning health care reform.

For instance, since it is legal in Texas to carry such firearms openly as long as the carrier is not a felon and does not aim the weapon at anyone (see http://www.lcav.org/states/newmexico.asp#carryi… for the current NM regulations), a group of Black Panthers carrying AK-47s and shotguns gathered at the Texas Republican Party’s state convention on June 16th 2000 to protest Texas Governor Gov. George W. Bush’s refusal to intervene in the pending execution of convicted murderer Gary Graham (video: http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=Gd…).

For what it might be worth the Black Panther Party (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was established to promote African-American rights (and by extension their right to self-defense) and was active in the United States from the mid-1960s into the 1970s. In accordance with their belief in Mao Zedong's axiom that “political power grows out of the gun” thirty Party members with rifles and shotguns marched into the California State Assembly at Sacramento on May 2, 1967 to protest a proposed arms-control law. Previously the BPP had provided an armed escort for Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, at a San Francisco Bay Area speaking engagement. When the media got out of hand and law enforcement officers began to try to enforce order with their nightsticks the Panthers responded by chambering rounds into shotguns, which in that instance turned out to be a threatening enough to preventing the situation from boiling over.

In any case it's worth noting that while the term 'hair trigger' describes a circumstance where the mechanism that actuates a firearm (the trigger) is such that it will set off the firearm when a very small pressure is applied, the term is also used to describe instability in the sense of responding to the slightest provocation or stimulation, as in a hair-trigger temper or reaction.

Reportedly one out four Americans own a gun and I would suggest that statistics indicate a predominate number of their owners are not irresponsible (AKA “trigger happy”) in the use of their firearms, which in my opinion as a gun owner does not under any circumstances extend to bringing a potentially deadly weapon to any public gathering – much less one charged with as much well orchestrated emotion (and thinly veiled racial hatred) as those concerning health care reform.

As a member of BOTH the NRA and the ACLU, I support groups which support individual rights.

When you start picking and choosing, remember that someone else may choose to marginalize the rights which you think are important, just as you attempt to marginalize Second Amendment rights.

This is nothing more than a replay of the gay rights movement (“We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!) where that community refused to be stuffed into a closet, and they paraded their rights in public.

Those who LEGALLY carry guns in public are doing so in order that the public sees normal, law-abiding people (their neighbors) carrying guns. This is to normalize a civil right which has been pushed back into the closet.

Those days are over. Lawful gun owners refuse to be marginalized, and just as with the gay rights movement, they are taking it to the streets.

As a member of two civil rights organizations — the ACLU and the NRA — I'm happy to see it.

The characterization of a presumably loaded gun strapped to the leg of an observer at a public gathering as “some inanimate object” is laughably ingenuous. In the photo, the gun-toter is displaying a placard with a portion of a quote from Jefferson. As Frank Rich recently pointed out in a NY Times column, the same quote was on the t-shirt worn by Timothy McVeigh the day in 1995 when he blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City. Portraying these extremists as defenders of the U.S. Constitution is obscene.

Words are much more frightening than some inanimate object!

We see that the businesses in this world and the US have NEVER been responsible for initiating and escalating undeclared wars that dragged our country into conflicts, all in the pursuit of profits. The Philippines, Spanish American War, the war on our Native American Indians, Vietnam, Panama, oh so many more.

Campaigns waged by these businesses in paralell by the application of words or propaganda, as it is known. Propaganda put forth by the media to demonize and portray a non-existent threat as a viable threat!

Of course, words and the ideas they communicate as propaganda have never been responsible for any encouraging or engendering of violence right? After all, how many millions have died because one groups God was bigger and badder than the other groups God? (Nazi's, Radical Islam…..)

Do your research on the number of victims of business greed and especially religious intolerance resulting in so much violence. What you see is a viscous pattern of “WORDS” being used as propoganda in the Media to incite and drive violent actions. Words are in fact more dangerous than the tools used to do the violence.

Based on this reality V.B Price, we must assume your are fully in favor of registering and licensing our first amendment rights even more than what has illegally occurred on the second amendment as words are indeed the largest contributor to violence!

The real issue here is not public safety, not their rights, no violation of the law, no violent incidents just the individuals judgement, prove otherwise!

Besides, isnt it a good thing to remind our politicians of “what” the second amendment means, after all, they have really, really, really, really done “everything” that is in the “peoples” best interests over the last 50 to 60 years, right? Even more so in recent years right V.P. Price?

I will take anothers advice though, like so many others, I will sit back, fishing rod at my feet, drinking a cold one, and chuckling at all the stupid rhetoric about someone exercising their affirmed rights as simply, and maybe you can clarify this to me, nothing happened, did it? Such a recurring theme of the the anti's fear mongering there will be blood in the streets. The streets didnt run red with the blood of so many victims, again what victims or violence occurred V.P. Price?

I will point out again that NONE of the people in any of the footage, nor the local police, nor the SS, nor even the woman in the video debating with the AR-carrying gentlemen, appear the least bit intimidated. She was SAYING that it was intimidating, but she clearly wasn't intimidated. That, or she's the bravest person I have ever seen.

People who were there at the rally, knew that the gentlemen was exercising 2A and 1A at the same time. NO ONE took cover, ran for their lives, or any other response that one would expect to see from any normal human in fear of their life.

The presence of a firearm to someone unfamiliar, or unaccustomed to seeing them, can be chilling and unnerving, even if no-one is bearing it. Many people would have a similar reaction to a lone firearm sitting all by itself in a driveway. Is that intimidation, or does intimidation require the accompanying behavior of an live intimidator?

'Intimidate' is a verb, not a feeling. It requires action. We need to separate out pure fear of firearms as objects, and intimidation via firearm. Fear is fear, but these are two different sources of fear. At the root of 'feeling' intimidated is mistrust. People generally trust police, therefore they are less likely to 'feel' intimidated by an armed officer. They've been conditioned to 'feel' intimidated by an armed civilian, whether that civilian is doing any intimidating or not.

There is an unavoidable reconditioning that will have to occur as rights are restored if the carrying of firearms is see to it's cultural renaissance. Now, many of us agree that these events might not be the best method for all sorts of excellent reasons.

However, the incidents of the past two weeks have clearly demonstrated on the international stage that the mere presence of a firearm, even in the hands of a civilian, EVEN if it's an AR15 with a full, 30 round magazine, does NOT automatically spell disaster and mayhem, and does NOT automatically warrant a violent crackdown from armed authorities.

That's huge, and can be a pivotal moment in the return of civilian bearing of arms to it's rightful place in our society. Let's not screw it up.

It was risky, but the point has been made. I hope that gun owners can just take the win, lay low, and let Gura and others carry these success stories unblemished into the SCOTUS next term and carry out the coup de grâce: incorporation, and the right to bear in DC.

Once that happens, we can start knocking down some dominoes in NY, MA, CA, IL, HA, WI, and every other recalcitrant enclave of 2A tyranny.