There has been a lot of hullaballo lately about citizens attending political rallies carrying guns. The uproar is predictable if foolish.
In Portsmouth, New Hampshire recently, a man carried a handgun a few blocks away from the site where President Obama was scheduled to hold a town hall a couple of hours later. Was it a danger or not? The man carrying the gun, William Kostric, even had permission to have the gun on private church property while he was protesting Obama’s appearance. Everybody from the New York Times to USA Today to CBS News expressed their outrage, interpreting it as a hot head threatening the president and linking it to militias and conservative talk radio. A prominent liberal radio talk show host came out saying that conservatives “want Obama to get shot.” New legislation related to this incident is even being proposed in Congress.
Obviously no one wants to see a president even remotely threatened and people need to be sensitive to such things. But worrying over a law-abiding citizen legally carrying a gun several blocks and a couple of hours away from an indoor event that the president will attend is overdoing it.
Before the president’s town hall meeting, an MSNBC host noted: “Apparently there is fairly significant, almost disturbing news, let us know what is happening there in New Hampshire.” A reporter, Ron Allen, breathlessly responded: “There is a man in the crowd who has a gun, a handgun strapped on his lower leg. . . . And I suspect that he won’t be here when the president gets here in a couple of hours time.”
The root issue is that private citizens are not taken seriously. Individuals are viewed as cogs in a machine. The machine is designed to protect the political class even though the political class likes to pretend the machine operates for the benefit of the citizens. I call bullshit. As John Lott points out, the media doesn’t know a damn thing about guns, as a general rule of thumb. The media also like to spread fear memes because those memes are their bread and butter.
What kind of people carry guns? Serious people. What kind of people openly carry guns at a political rally? Thoughtful serious people. What kind of people try to convince everyone else that the people carrying the guns at political rallies represent danger to everyone else? Fearmongers. Alarmists. Non-serious shallow people who prey on the weak minded.
Name a presidential assassination that began with a citizen who was openly carrying for the purpose of both self-defense and political statement while holding a slogan. There are no such incidents and there never will be. The armed individuals we have seen protesting at rallies recently, both pro and anti, represent the bedrock of American liberty. They are the glue that holds society together. They are the balance that we so desperately need in troubled times. I have seen no evidence of an armed individual openly carrying in the last few weeks that demonstrated any irrational behavior on the horizon. I heard no direct threats issue from the mouths of these individuals as the rabble we call the modern press clamored to ask them incendiary leading and insulting questions about their intent and their mental status. In fact, everything I heard sounded well considered and made me wish that the interviewer and the protester would magically switch places for a while.
Self-defense is for everyone, not just people in uniforms. People serious about their own defense carry guns. This basic right – the right to defend one’s own existence from aggressors – is assured in the founding documents of the United States. Serious people do not rent out their own defense or give up their right to exercise it on their own behalf. A million individuals with guns who are not trying to force you into a system you disagree with represent much less of a threat than a few thousand wearing uniforms and acting in concert who don’t care whether or or not you want to participate in the systems they want to impose on your life. We should laud citizens who exercise and reaffirm basic rights.