Political dissent: When protesters pack heat

As if the debate over health care wasn’t volatile enough, said USA Today in an editorial, now we can “add weapons to the mix.” Some of the more adamant critics of reform have been coming to town-hall meetings—including those featuring President Obama—openly brandishing guns. One protester in Portsmouth, N.H., carried a handgun strapped to his leg, and police in Memphis escorted a man with a handgun out of the room. About a dozen armed people, including one with an assault rifle, demonstrated at a recent Obama event in Phoenix. The protesters were not breaking any laws, but why “play with fire”—especially since death threats against Obama are up 400 percent over those against President Bush? It’s obvious what the goal is here, said The Miami Herald. “Guns at political rallies send a message of intimidation.” They have nothing to do “with debating political issues.”

You couldn’t be more wrong, said Alan Korwin in The Arizona Republic..com, The people legally carrying guns to these events absolutely are making a political statement—not just about gun rights but about their broader concerns about the nation’s direction. “They are literally up in arms” that such cherished ideals as limited government, personal freedom, and free-market capitalism are under threat, and “they are speaking up peacefully but in no uncertain terms,” declaring that they’ve had enough. It’s true, said Megan McArdle in TheAtlantic.com that guns complicate the Secret Service’s job of protecting Obama. But that’s also the case “every time we allow a protest or, for that matter, a crowd near him.” Taking such risks is the price we pay for living in a free society. And while it drives liberals to “hysteria,” the Constitution really does include “the right to bear arms.”

Taking weapons to public meetings may be legal, said John Whitehead in Huffingtonpost.com, but it’s also “downright stupid.” Bringing guns to events where passions are running high, and the president and other public officials are speaking, does nothing but “endanger innocent lives” while making protesters look like extremists or terrorists—thereby discrediting their cause. That may be the silver lining in this insanity, said the Baltimore Sun. “If people can’t be counted on to be rational and leave their loaded guns at home when they’re in proximity to the leader of the Free World, they’ve made the case for stronger gun-control laws all by themselves.”

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