Man carrying assault weapon attends Obama protest

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PHOENIX – About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside the convention center where President Barack Obama was giving a speech Monday — the latest incident in which protesters have openly displayed firearms near the president.

Gun-rights advocates say they're exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest, while those who argue for more gun control say it could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday's event, including the man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, didn't need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.

The man with the rifle declined to be identified but told The Arizona Republic that he was carrying the assault weapon because he could. "In Arizona, I still have some freedoms," he said.

Phoenix police Detective J. Oliver, who monitored the man at the downtown protest, said police also wanted to make sure no one decided to harm him.

"Just by his presence and people seeing the rifle and people knowing the president was in town, it sparked a lot of emotions," Oliver said. "We were keeping peace on both ends."

Last week, during Obama's health care town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a sign reading "It is time to water the tree of liberty" stood outside with a pistol strapped to his leg.

"It's a political statement," he told The Boston Globe. "If you don't use your rights, then you lose your rights."

Police asked the man to move away from school property, but he was not arrested.

Fred Solop, a Northern Arizona University political scientist, said the incidents in New Hampshire and Arizona could signal the beginning of a disturbing trend.

"When you start to bring guns to political rallies, it does layer on another level of concern and significance," Solop said. "It actually becomes quite scary for many people. It creates a chilling effect in the ability of our society to carry on honest communication."

He said he's never heard of someone bringing an assault weapon near a presidential event. "The larger the gun, the more menacing the situation," he said.

Phoenix was Obama's last stop on a four-day tour of western states, including Montana and Colorado.

Authorities in Montana said they received no reports of anyone carrying firearms during Obama's health care town hall near Bozeman on Friday. About 1,000 people both for and against Obama converged at a protest area near the Gallatin Field Airport hangar where the event took place. One person accused of disorderly conduct was detained and released, according to the Gallatin Airport Authority.

Heather Benjamin of Denver's Mesa County sheriff's department, the lead agency during Obama's visit there, said no one was arrested.

Arizona is an "open-carry" state, which means anyone legally allowed to have a firearm can carry it in public as long as it's visible. Only someone carrying a concealed weapon is required to have a permit.

Paul Helmke, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said people should not be allowed to bring guns to events where Obama is.

"To me, this is craziness," he said. "When you bring a loaded gun, particularly a loaded assault rifle, to any political event, but particularly to one where the president is appearing, you're just making the situation dangerous for everyone."

He said people who bring guns to presidential events are distracting the Secret Service and law enforcement from protecting the president. "The more guns we see at more events like this, there's more potential for something tragic happening," he said.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said armed demonstrators in open-carry states such as Arizona and New Hampshire have little impact on security plans for the president.

"In both cases, the subject was not entering our site or otherwise attempting to," Donovan said. "They were in a designated public viewing area. The main thing to know is that they would not have been allowed inside with a weapon."

Representatives of the National Rifle Association did not return calls for comment.

I'm an Arizonan....I apologize.

I love Arizona, but there are a lot of stupid people causing trouble here.

Sometimes even what there is a right to do can be in bad taste in a given instance.

Found this video interview with one fellow carrying openly:
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/ ... 3&src=news

I don't own a gun, haven't wanted to - though I'm fine with both concealed carry and open carry.

It's the guns you don't see that are held by people you don't know are the ones who shouldn't have one to begin with that are the people with guns who you need to worry about.

Probably true all over the world.

I don't see the problem, Obama has tried to downplay his record on gun control, so gun owners are behaving in a visable and legal manner to remind him that we still have our collective eye on him, metaphorically speaking. I mean if even the Secret Service isn't concerned, why is anyone else making a big deal out if it? I do appreciate the Brady Campaign's rather weak effort in claiming that such protesters are "distracting" the SS, when if that were really the case I'm sure they would have spoken up for themselves.

A lot of people seem to have the rationale behind concealed carry backwards, e.g. that someone who's concealing a weapon is doing so in order to conceal their assumed ill intent. In reality, CC is done as a courtesy to the non-carrying public who may be sensitive to seeing armed citizens going about their daily business, open carry is much more flexible as far as dressing for it etc, but you do tend to have problems with an ignorant public and even ignorant law enforcement. People that make a habit of it tend to carry around a copy of the applicable statutes in order to minimize any inconvenience due to ignorance of the law, but it can still be a hassle getting stopped at gunpoint by rookie cops that think you're doing something illegal, then are too afraid of losing face to back down. The point though, is that there are many more law abiding citizens lawfully carrying than many people outside of the shooting sports community realize, to their occasional alarm when we decide to make ourselves visible, such as what's going on with these protests. Incidentally, Phoenix is known as one of the most open carry friendly large cities around, so I'm sure the locals are just rolling their eyes at the histrionics over a bit of OC at a political rally.

Gun control is being able to hit your target.

This OMG! it's an "Assault Weapon" business just irritates the hell out of me.
It's not a military grade weapon - it's the same semi-automatic - meaning every time you pull the trigger, you get a shot, one shot - mechanism as what can be bought in the hunting section at Wal Mart, but in a fancy military looking package.

Military "assault weapons" have a full automatic, machine-gun like ability to keep firing continuously as long as the trigger is held down.

Yeah, let's use loaded language and do a spot of social engineering, which we can get away with just fine since most people won't know or understand the difference.

Gah! Manipulation of ignorance in the name of an agenda just makes me crazy!
Isn't it so nice that no one speaking for the Autistic and Aspergers community ever does that.

If they kill Obama, then Joe "Mr. Blooper" Biden becomes prez. Kill him and NANCY PELOSI would get the top job! Yikes! There are really no good options here, unless there's a revolution and Ron Paul is installed as prez, which might be the only way out.

I respectfully disagree with the above post. Although the AR-15 isn't the exact same weapon used by the military, it is still a very potent rifle that can deliver a lot of hurt. A rifle being semi-automatic doesn't really restrict it's ability to cause violence onto others. In fact, I wouldn't use automatic on an assault rifle unless I was very close to the target, as in house clearing, etc.

When you're trying to shoot a target that's not especially close, you would either shoot in semi-auto or, in guns that can, 3-round burst. And considering that you can fit a 30 round magazine (or even a drum carrying 100 rounds) to an AR-15, it would be possible to harm a lot of people as quickly as one can pull the trigger.

True in that they have to be automatic but then again, an AR-15 can be converted to auto without it being overly apparent to anyone around that person unless they inspect the weapon.

And one must take into account that automatic weapons are severely restricted by your magazine size, for instance, an M16 on full auto would only shoot about 3-4 seconds. I'm sure you could do a lot of damage in crowd on full auto but in any other setting, it would be useless. You would have an empty mag and a lot of Secret Services agents shooting at you, probably more accurately than you did.

Last edited by JohnyCanadianArmy on 18 Aug 2009, 10:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

QFT
This could come back to bite me in the butt, but I consider Americans exercising the constitutional rights to be a good thing. I don't really have a problem with someone openly carrying a weapon in a place where it is legal to do so. They have the right to exercise their rights so far as it doesn't violate anybody else's rights.

My right to swing my fist ends at your nose.

Hey there JohnyCanadianArmy;

As it happens I come from a family with a lot of military and law enforcement members, with at least one being a serious gun and knife collector.
Yeah, I understand what you're saying.

Just because you can do something dosen't mean you have do. There you've made me my mother are you all happy now? Gee's If you want to keep you right to have guns don't act like a loon and show up were the Obama is with a gun. Think about it you want the rest of the world to think your wackjobs or that you are what the NRA has been saying for years just normal people that want guns for recreation and /or self protection.

First - A SEMIAUTOMATIC RIFLE IS NOT AN "ASSAULT WEAPON"! !! ! A properly-disciplined armed force charging into combat firing one round at a time is going to get routed by a mob, if that mob is firing full-auto! Just because you think it looks scary doesn't mean it's any more dangerous than any other weapon you might see. In fact, as an AR-15 fires a NATO-standard 5.56mm round (which translates to slightly under .22 caliber), it's dramatically less dangerous than, say, a 30.06 hunting rifle (also easily available in hunting-supply stores).

Second - yes, we do have a Constitutionally-guaranteed right to keep and bear arms. Remember, however, that choosing to exercise that right in an inappropriate venue - say, anywhere within gunshot of the President of the United States - may carry with it some severe consequences, in the person of a large gentleman with a .45 and an earpiece. If you're not prepared to face the consequences, maybe you shouldn't be carrying there...

At least this was just in Arizona. I would be 100000x more concerned if this meeting was being held in one of the southeastern states where there's more racial antagonism Some guns would be bound to go off there.

I agree with what's been said. It's not an "assault rifle" and if they're allowed to do it then I don't see the problem. I do think it's really stupid though and just stirring the pot than any real political statement. The media will happily oblige and sensationalize it into any one who opposes Obama is some right wing nutjob.

I'm not any more worried about Obama's safety than I was with Bush. The secret service has that stuff locked down.