Shutting Down Debate at Gunpoint

Here's a fun item from over the weekend. While you were doing whatever it was you were doing yesterday, a fine and not at all cowardly group of Texans who are not at all lunatics were busy doing this:


ThinkProgress: On Saturday, nearly 40 armed men, women, and children waited outside a Dallas, Texas area restaurant to protest a membership meeting for the state chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a gun safety advocacy group formed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

According to a spokeswoman for Moms Demand Action (MDA), the moms were inside the Blue Mesa Grill when members of Open Carry Texas (OCT) — an open carry advocacy group — “pull[ed] up in the parking lot and start[ed] getting guns out of their trunks.” The group then waited in the parking lot for the four MDA members to come out. The spokeswoman said that the restaurant manager did not want to call 911, for fear of “inciting a riot” and waited for the gun advocates to leave. The group moved to a nearby Hooters after approximately two hours.

MDA later released a statement calling OCT “gun bullies” who “disagree[d] with our goal of changing America’s gun laws and policies to protect our children and families.” The statement added that the members and restaurant customers were “terrified by what appeared to be an armed ambush.” A member of OCT responded by tweeting, “I guess I’m a #gunbullies #Comeandtakeit.”


So, on learning that they'd panicked innocent people, Mr. Second Amendment Hero here thought, "Good!" Clearly, that was the intent. There are two words to describe someone like that -- a thug or a prick. One does not rule out the other.

On further thought, there are three words. You'll need to add "criminal." "Licensed gun owners are allowed to carry concealed weapons," the report continues, "but Texas is one of six states that prohibits open carry of firearms."

Being members of an open carry advocacy group, these people knew they were breaking the law. After all, they exist to change that law. They made a conscious choice to engage in criminal behavior. Just as they made the choice to carry all outward appearances of an angry lynch mob, come to punish some moms for the unforgivable crime of discussing ways to reduce gun violence. The Second Amendment Heroes from OCT weren't interested in discussing anything. They were interested in shutting down discussion literally at gun point. Because nothing says freedom like an armed goon putting a gun in your face and saying, "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

But they won't succeed in shutting down discussion -- mostly because the average American is not so cowardly as they are. When one group of people feels the need to armed constantly and one thinks there are better, less stupid, and less insane solutions to violence, it's not hard to identify the more courageous of the two.

What's bothering me though is this, which happened just the day before:


KHOU: A massive house party advertised on Twitter turned violent when two teenagers were shot to death and 19 others were injured late Saturday in northwest Harris County [Texas], deputies said.

According to Harris County Sheriff's Office, the mass shooting happened just before 11 p.m. at a birthday party for 18-year-old Mariah Boulden in the 7300 block of Enchanted Creek Drive.

Sheriff Adrian Garcia described the scene from Saturday night as a “birthday party gone wild.”


"Two high school students, 18-year-old male and 16-year-old female, were killed, while 19 others were injured during the shooting," the report tells us. Just one of the mass shootings that have become such a daily occurrence in the US that they don't even make national news. The blood-soaked and bullet hole-ridden wallpaper of our daily lives -- so constant and ubiquitous that we don't even see it anymore.

There were no armed protesters at the scene the next day, demanding that people use their firearms responsibly -- no unspoken threat to gun down anyone who didn't. No, they were too busy getting ready to go harass a handful of unarmed moms who met to talk about the sort of things that Second Amendment Heroes would rather you just ignore. Things that constant repetition makes so easy for the media to ignore. Another day, another senseless mass shooting -- *yawn* are you sure there isn't some celebrity nip-slip out there someplace to report on?

So a group of armed psychopaths went to menace people who wanted to regulate firearms. In other words, the day after a mass shooting, a bunch of gun-toting cowards went to make sure that people like the shooters would always have easy access to plenty of firearms with plenty of ammo, so they could get hammered at a kegger and start using guns the way other people use firecrackers. And, if some kids are shot and some others are trampled? Tough luck.

That's clearly what the Founders intended. So sleep well, gun fetishists of America. Open Carry Texas is out there making sure your guns are safe.

Your children, not so much. But you've got to have your priorities.

-Wisco

[photo distributed by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America]