Tone it down–a lot.
If you have to appeal to emotions to make your point, your point may not be as strong as you suppose. If you have to resort to insults, then you may not even have a point.
[ /Moderating ]
Why didn’t you tell Bricker to tone it down?
Note I didn’t even use bad words.
Well yeah, but do the dudes at that rally know that? 
Plenty of pro-gun folks think they can fight off the government when the Kenyan-islamo-socialist-nazi-facists take over.
Now mind you, I don’t believe that they couldn’t cause some trouble, I mean a hunting rifle will still punch through any helmet we’re using, but I do question the idea of them winning.
Some years ago I started a thread asking pretty much the same question- ie, are there really significant numbers of people in the US who honestly think they can fight the military and win, armed with nothing but a bolt-action hunting rifle and a Colt. 45?
The answer, worringly, was “Yes”.
If bringing guns to a pro-Second Amendment rally is logical, does the same apply to those bringing them to an anti-HCR town hall rally? Are they “just exercising their rights” as they claim, or can we at least agree that these guys were intending to intimidate?
More worrying still, some of these people are actually looking forward to it.
I see.
And when did the conversation narrow to waving guns in the air?
Becauseit now appears that you and I are in agreement. Waving guns in the air is a threatening behavior.
Are you saying that it is OK to carry at an Anti Gun-Control protest… but not at another type of protest?
I believe the discussion is about carrying at any type of protest, and the idea that a protest with guns, has become something other than a simple rally or protest.
Feel free to leave anytime.
Nobody’s saying that these guys are wise or thought this through - quite the opposite, in fact!
It became about waving guns in the air when Oakminster mentioned (unprompted) that he’d be inclinded to do so, and I responded with the internet version of shock. And from there it progressed.
Well, you are a smart guy; it was always inevitable that you’d come around to my position eventually.
Okay, so we’ve established a baseline - waving guns in the air is a threatening behavior. Therefore, it logically follows that guns at rallys can be threatening, despite the amazing power of the second amendment to make them legal to carry, and thus the second amendment should never be mentioned in this context in this thread again. The second amendment isn’t what prevents doing things with guns at rallies from being a bad idea.
Now that we’ve gotten that red herring out of the way, the question becomes, what is threatening behavior? Well, I’d say it obviously depends on two factors: whether the person intends to intimidate, and what other people are likely to consider intimidating. After all, if everybody was cool and calm about people waving guns in the air, it wouldn’t be intimitaing behavior, right?
I think that any idiot, even gun-carrying ones, knows that many people find the mere sight of guns intimidating. That’s the whole point of the open-carry movement, after all; to work towards desensitizing the population to the sight of guns, which would be unnecessary if the populace weren’t sensitive. People know that even a single gun is intimidating to people in some areas. It’s not even credible to claim that people are unaware that an overtly over-armed crowd is going to be intimidating to even more people. Seriously, that’s not even a believe I can entertain for the sake of argument. Of course the sight of the armed mob is can be intimidating, you know it, I know it, we all know it.
Which leaves only the question of whether the intent was to intimidate. Which seriously don’t think is much of a question. Parallels to gay pride parades are actually apt - I’m quite confident that gay pride parades are meant to shock, or at least were originally. They’re meant to crack the ‘pretending it’s not happening’ facade, which had been perniciously in force for hundreds of years. (This intent may have faded in time, to be replaced by tradition nowadays.)
I think that bringing guns to a rally is meant to leverage the visual effect of guns, just as gay pride parades leveraged the visual effect of leather. And the visual effect of guns is intimidation (despite speciuous claims to the contrary). This goes x10 when the guns are carried by a group in force that is strident towards a particular goal - a display of excess armament is a statement that the people packing the weapons are ready and willing to use them. I am of the opinion that this is so obvious that denials of it are grounded in just that: denial.
It is of course relevent to ask who the intended target of the intimidation is - it’s likely not everyone, since they probably don’t intend to intimidate like-minded people. (In fact they likely hoped to embolden such types.) I actually agree that they probably intended to intimidate the government - and that they probably haven’t thought that through very hard. Sure they might want to intimidate peasents who support gun control too, but I think they definitely had sending a message to the government on their list.
And I just want to add that I find it amusing that the lack of a counter-protest was brought up (not by you) as evidence that nobody was intimidated, when the point has been that such an armed crowd could easily be considered dangerous. What, the anti-gun people are expected to spontaneously walk up and start shouting back at the mob of armed maniacs? :dubious:
And that comment was in reference to Moses/Heston’s “cold dead hands” speech, where, if I remember correctly, he gave the line, and then raised a rifle to the sky. Didn’t wave it around recklessly. Didn’t threaten anybody. Had I been in that crowd, and carrying a rifle, I would have joined him in the salute. And that’s all it was. A salute. Not really any different t from raising a fist to the sky at a rock concert. IT communicates “YEAH! Right On! I agree!”. It does not mean “Fear me, oh timid liberals, for I am mighty”.
So a display of adequate armament woulda been OK? Who gets to decide how much is adequate? Can I bring one gun? Two? Ten? Does it make a difference if the weapons use the same ammunition? Lot of people I know like to have a pistol and a rifle chambered for the same round. Is that cool? A .357 magnum revolver and a .357 magnum carbine? Would you prefer I swap the pistol for a 9mm, or a .45? Or swap the rifle for a shotgun? Could you even tell the difference?
That might be the argument they make, but the whole point of open-carry it seems, is to show potential attackers what big guns you have, in the hope they’ll move on to weaker targets.
Adequete armament means, by definition, the necessary amount. Which raises the question, necessary for what?
Option 1: To deal with random shooters that might pop up in sight of the rally, because the world is a dangerous place, y’know. Adequate armament: three guns in the whole crowd. And no unloaded guns at all. Unless there were cops or the like keeping an eye on the protest, then “no guns at all of any kind” is the adequate amount.
Option 2: To deal with the onslaught of rabid anti-gun liberals who were inevitably going to attack the protest. Adequate armament: depends on the desired result. The anti-gun attackers won’t have guns, so clubs are adequate to suppress them until the cops arrive; make your signs of strong wood. If you want them dead, then everybody should have a gun, or two, or ten. And no unloaded guns at all.
Option 3: To deal with the military when the government inevitably sent them to attack the protest. Adequate armament: doesn’t exist. They’re doomed. Better stay home and cower. Oh, and unloaded guns are certainly no help at all (not that much of anything would be).
Option 4: To intimidate and scare innocent people: What they had was a pretty good amount - you didn’t see any counter-protest, did you? Unloaded guns work okay for this, though loaded guns are better.
Option 5: To get people on the internet to think you’re idiots: they had just the right amount, and unloaded guns work perfectly.
Airman Doors, USAF wants to have a chat with you.
Are we talking about the gay pride marches again?
I disagree. Depending on the context, carrying a gun may be expressive conduct, and appropriate to bring to a protest. I think article you linked to in the opening post describes a context where carrying a gun is expressive conduct and appropriate. Furthermore, armed peaceful protest is also a hallmark of democracy, at least it has been in our experience with republic constitutionalism.
The thing that’s being argued by many is that the “Expression” the conduct of carrying a gun to a protest is can be seen as “I have a gun and if you don’t do what I want… well, I might decide to use it.”