Thread: Guns at political events DEBATE - USA TODAY

Our view on firearms and crowds: Guns at political events stir up a volatile brew

There’s something happening here — and nothing good can come of it.

When a man with a gun strapped to his leg showed up outside a presidential town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., this month, and a dozen protesters — including one man with an AR-15 rifle slung over his shoulder — repeated the performance in Phoenix, shrill and overly simplistic rhetoric ricocheted around the nation for days.

Those on the left decried the incidents, many suggesting that anyone who would carry a gun to a presidential event must be nuts, potentially violent or both. Conservatives parried that this was nothing more than Second Amendment advocates asserting their rights to self-protection.

But a funny thing happened amid the all-too-predictable din. A couple of advocates — polar opposites in the gun debate — found a kernel of common ground that holds a ton of common sense. Their bottom line:

Carrying guns openly outside presidential events may be legal in many states, but it sure isn't smart.

Press both advocates and their reasoning gets very different, very fast. Alan Gottlieb, of the Second Amendment Foundation, argues that openly carrying a gun in this situation is politically foolish. It intimidates people and turns them off to the gun-rights cause. Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, argues that loaded firearms in such situations stifle debate and endanger everyone involved.

The fact is, all are solid reasons to leave guns at home when going to presidential venues, or political events of any kind. And on websites and Internet discussion groups, many gun owners made that point.

For starters, the mood at some of this summer's health care town hall meetings has been disturbing enough without the addition of weapons. Some have degenerated into furious shouting matches. Opponents of reform have whipped up anger. A few protesters outside have carried signs likening President Obama to Hitler. No good can come from adding weapons to the mix.

For every reason that gun advocates proffer for why they want to carry firearms, there's a wiser alternative.

Want to protest? Carry a sign or get a bumper sticker. Your cause is a lot more likely to win adherents.

Worried that violence might break out? That's unlikely, given that police and Secret Service are all over the place. If it did, would shooting a gun in a crowd really be the best remedy? Or is some innocent person more likely to get killed that way?

And there's this. In the week that Sen. Edward Kennedy was laid to rest — the only Kennedy brother to die of natural causes — it's tough to argue that bringing a gun to political events is just a benign act of protest. It's playing with fire in a nation where so many political figures have been killed or maimed by bullets.

The Secret Service says none of the incidents endangered Obama. If necessary, the Secret Service can expand the safety perimeter around the president, regardless of state law. But why tempt fate?

The surest way to curb this dangerous trend is for gun owners to do it themselves. For years, they and their advocacy groups have argued that gun owners are responsible with their weapons, that they're owned for sport and self-defense.

Neither is reason to bring guns to a political protest. The best way for gun owners to make their case is to leave the heat at home.
Open carry

These 11 states have the nation's most expansive "open-carry" laws, allowing anyone who can legally own a gun to openly carry it virtually anywhere:
-- Alaska
-- Arizona
-- Idaho
-- Kentucky
-- Montana
-- New Mexico
-- Nevada
-- South Dakota
-- Vermont
-- Virginia
-- Wyoming

Source: Second Amendment Foundation

Posted at 12:22 AM/ET, August 31, 2009 in USA TODAY editorial |
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Opposing view: Guns prevent confrontations

We have the right to self-defense anywhere our lives are at risk.

By Philip Van Cleave

Logic 101 teaches that if you start with a false premise you can prove anything. The assumption that no good can come from someone carrying a gun lawfully at a political event is a classic example of such a false premise.

Our lives are no less valuable at political events than they are while we are shopping, jogging or watching television at home. Yet I'm being told that while I can defend myself at home or at the grocery store, if I cross a line and go to a political event and someone gets violent, I can't defend myself by carrying a gun. That makes no sense. We have the right to defend ourselves anywhere our lives could be threatened.

As for the arguments of gun critics, they don't hold up:

"Who needs a gun at a political event with all the police around?" A video of a gun owner and others being confronted by a large, muscular man outside the presidential town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., makes the point nicely. At one point, the man spits at someone holding a camera. Someone yells for help from police, but by the time an officer responds, the large man is leaving the scene. Indeed, crime can happen anywhere, at any time, even with the police a short distance off. If someone had pulled out a knife and started stabbing people, it seems clear that police would have arrived too late.

Often when a crime occurs, you have only seconds to respond. No time to call 911, or to wait for the police to arrive as you scream for your life. At the Portsmouth event, the gun was not brandished or even touched. The president was never in danger, and neither was anyone in the crowd. But I believe the large man moved on because of the power of a firearm to stave off confrontations.

"Political events can be too emotionally charged to have people carrying guns." If I am carrying a gun at a place so dangerous that somebody might start killing people over politics or another reason, then I absolutely want to be armed to protect myself. Police don't get special training on carrying guns in emotionally charged atmospheres. I know; I was a deputy sheriff for six years.

The muscular man in New Hampshire, pushing emotions to the limit, did not get shot. That's because gun owners, like police, know that a gun is to be used only in the gravest circumstances.

Philip Van Cleave is president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, a non-partisan advocacy group for gun owners' rights.

Posted at 12:21 AM/ET, August 31, 2009 in USA TODAY editorial
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Does Arizona have an image problem?

by Scott Wong -
Aug. 31, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic .

Just as local and state tourism officials tried to shed Phoenix's unbecoming title as the "kidnapping capital of America," another national moniker has emerged: gun-crazy.

A man carrying a pistol and semiautomatic rifle outside the Phoenix hall where President Barack Obama spoke this month ignited a media firestorm, reinforcing the stereotype of the Grand Canyon State as a gun-loving vestige of the Wild West.

The firearms display, later revealed to be a publicity stunt, was legal under an Arizona law that allows most citizens to openly carry guns in public without a permit.
But the spotlight cast by cable-news pundits, newspaper editorials and blogs - including censure from a world-renowned travel writer - raised questions about whether Arizona's lax gun laws make it safe to travel and do business in the state.

"We're an urban city, and there are individuals trying to hold on to the old ways of the Wild West," said Phoenix Councilman Michael Nowakowski, himself a gun owner. "We're going to lose a lot of conventions because of one knucklehead."

Before the gun stunt, tales of Mexican drug cartels abducting rival smugglers and immigrants and holding them for ransom in Valley homes had already painted Phoenix as a city under siege.

But as Arizona's image took another beating, more than a dozen civic leaders, tourism officials and media strategists huddled in Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon's office last week to discuss how to stanch the flow of bad publicity.

While this was just the first of many meetings, officials said they plan to invite journalists and event planners to visit the state, share information about falling crime rates, and utilize social media like Twitter and YouTube to help market Arizona as a safe and friendly place to visit.

They have good reason to be on edge. The tourism and convention industry pumped $18.5 billion into the Arizona economy last year, generating $2.6 billion in local, state and federal taxes and supporting 170,000 jobs, according to the Arizona Office of Tourism.

"The perception is exactly what we're concerned about because tourism is a huge component of the local economy here," said Patty Johnson, a marketing and media specialist who has been tapped to chair Gordon's ad hoc tourism and marketing committee.


Stunt draws spotlight

On Aug. 17, as Obama addressed veterans inside the Phoenix Convention Center, police monitored a dozen armed protesters milling outside the building at a health-care-reform rally.

The most visible was Phoenix resident Christopher Broughton, who verbally sparred with Obama supporters and gave media interviews with an AR-15 rifle strapped to his back and a pistol holstered at his side. A libertarian radio host, also sporting a pistol, said later that he and others cooked up the media stunt to draw attention to Second Amendment rights and Arizona's open-carry law.

National news outlets, however, portrayed it as a disturbing trend, given America's history of presidential assassinations. Just a week earlier, a former Scottsdale resident stood outside Obama's health-care town-hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., carrying a sign recalling the words of Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

For days, CNN and other cable-news channels played and replayed video clips of Broughton posted on YouTube. Liberal comedian Jon Stewart spoofed the incident on "The Daily Show" in a segment called "The Gun Show: Barrel Fever."

And editorial writers and columnists with newspapers across the country - from the New York Times and Los Angeles Times to the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star - condemned the armed protest- ers.

"It is hard to know what is more shocking: the sight of a dozen Americans showing up to flaunt guns outside the venue for President Obama's speech in Phoenix on Monday, or the fact that the swaggering display was completely legal," the New York Times wrote Aug. 20.

But a blog entry by travel icon Arthur Frommer has done the most damage to Arizona's reputation, officials said.

Founder of the Frommer's series of travel guidebooks, Frommer wrote that he would no longer visit Arizona, fearing for his personal safety after reading accounts of protesters carrying loaded weapons on the streets of Phoenix.

Frommer, who sold his company decades ago, was unavailable for comment. But he told NPR last weekend he was disturbed police officers stood around "like scared rabbits" while armed protesters tried to "threaten" and "intimidate" Obama supporters.

"Open-carry laws have to take second place to public order and to life," said Frommer, a New York Democrat and Obama campaign contributor. When NPR host Guy Raz suggested Frommer was making Arizona sound like war-torn Mogadishu, Frommer responded: "Well, it's getting that way. . . . The number of guns that are now being carried by citizens in Arizona is becoming frightening."


Expanding gun rights

Mayor Gordon has pointed out that Arizona is just one of 11 states where citizens don't need a license to carry a firearm in public as long as it is visible. In fact, there are only seven states where openly carrying guns is unlawful.

But this year, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law three major bills that expanded gun rights, a step proponents said makes the state a safer place. Beginning Sept. 30, one of those laws will allow people with a concealed-weapons permit to carry guns into restaurants and bars, though they can't pack heat while consuming alcohol.

Another new law will restrict property and business owners from banning guns from parking areas so long as the weapons are kept out of sight in locked vehicles. A third allows gun owners to display their weapon when they feel threatened by unlawful force.

"Every time we loosen gun laws to make it easier for citizens to carry guns in Arizona, we see a drop in the crime rate," said Tucson resident Todd Rathner, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. "These people have to get over the emotional, ignorant and insane reaction to law-abiding citizens with firearms."

Tourism officials said crime has already been on the wane.

The number of violent crimes across the Valley fell in 2008 to 16,832, a 6 percent drop over the previous two years, according to FBI statistics.

And Forbes.com this year excluded Phoenix from a list of America's 15 most dangerous metropolitan areas. Detroit topped the list with 1,220 violent crimes per 100,000 people. Travel hot spots Miami and Las Vegas were third and fourth.

More recent information shows that the number of violent crimes in Phoenix, including murders, rapes and robberies, stood at 4,569 in the first six months of 2009, a 14 percent decline compared with the same period a year earlier.

"We have a great, positive story to tell," said Arizona Tourism Office Director Sherry Henry, who took part in last week's meeting. "We just need to reassure the general public that loves Arizona and is interested in Arizona that it is safe to be here, that it is beautiful."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... e0831.html

If only Texas had an open carry law! Hey, we're working on it!