On Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:52:29 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:

On Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:39:35 -0500, Don Foreman
wrote:


Wearing a slung assault rifle to a political rally is clearly
irresponsible abuse of 2d amendment rights. Since there is no need
for defense it is obviously intended to intimidate. Intimidation of
peaceful citizens is exactly contrary to the clear intent of the 2d
amendment.

blink blink....intimidation of peaceful citizens?

Oh..you mean the brainwashed Useful Idiots who consider a rifle ,
whether its incased in 5 square feet of concrete, or slung over ones
shoulder to be "intimidating"?

I regard an assault rifle slung over the shoulder of a stranger, who
wears no insignia I recognize, to be worrisome. That may be either in
spite of or due to the fact that I'm a vet. If I find it worrisome I
can certainly see how some gentle citizens would find it intimidating.
Incomprehensible as it may be to you, there are indeed quite a few
good people, contributive citizens and intelligent folks, who are
quite unfamiliar with firearms and are frightened by the mere presence
of a gun. Consider that compulsory military service (the draft)
stopped more than a generation ago and that many of today's urban
folks have never been hunting so their impressions and opinions have
been formed by what they've read in the paper and seen on TV.

Nearly all of them I've known are at least two generations distant
from rural roots. I've gently introduced a number of them to handguns
by piquing their curiosity until it overcame their anxiety.

Not all have become gun owners and shooters but more than 50% have.
One of my daughters,Dr. Kelly the screaming liberal university
professor, was once rabidly anti. We've made some progress there.
She'll never be a shooter but she now has shot and enjoyed it. She's
even a little proud of having done that. Look the dragon in the eye
and spit in it. Perhaps she takes after her mother...

I had to grin when she told me that when one of her students
blog-posted that she wondered what sort of handgun might be suitable
for a young female graduate student in Detroit, said daughter
responded that she might like a Walther PPK. That has to be because
other daughter New York Karen purely loved shooting my PPK and shot it
very well indeed. Would Karen rub older sis Kelly's nose in the fact
that she had a super time with Dad shooting at the range -- with
target photos? Naaaahhhh....

Then you have no problem with a Conservative being forced to keep his
mouth shut because it "intimidates" far leftist fringe kooks when he
opens it and simply says something truthful?

I think you know better than that, Gunner, but nice try at deflection
with buzzwords. Your labels (conservative, leftist, fringe, kook)
are irrelevant here, and nothing I've said in this thread or
elsewhere could even remotely be resonably construed as supporting
suppression of anyone's 1st amendment right of free speech.