GOP Rep. encourages guns at town hall meetings
Published: August 18, 2009
Updated 6 months ago
Asked by an MSNBC anchor on Monday, a Georgia Republican member of Congress actually encouraged Americans to attend public forums packing heat.
“It just so happens those same people would take that weapon anywhere they go,” said Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), speaking to Chris Matthews during a Monday broadcast. “They are permitted to carry a concealed weapon. They have the right to do that…”
Matthews interrupted him. “They’re not concealed. … We’re looking at gentlemen here that have guns on them, in their holsters. They’re not concealed. They’re basically displaying their weapons. Armed weaponry at these public meetings. I’m just asking, why is it going on? …”
Gingrey replied: “Well Chris, they have the right to do that. I have no fear of it. I’ve already had five town hall meetings; I have six more planned. I don’t plan on wearing a bullet-proof vest. In fact, I usually get standing ovations when I come into these meetings … I have no fear.”
“Okay,” began Matthews again. “Would you discourage Americans, no matter race, color, creed or political identification, not to come armed to public meetings? Would you discourage them from doing that?”
Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN), who has not been holding town hall meetings on health care, replied, “My answer is yes…” He was cut off by Gingrey.
“No, I would not di … Oh,” the Georgia Republican trailed, before concluding that Americans should “exercise their Second Amendment rights.”
At The Atlanta Journal Constitution in Gingrey’s home state, writer Jay Bookman takes issue with the increasing trend of Americans coming to public meeting with deadly force in-tow.
“It is attempted intimidation,” he wrote. “It is an acknowledgment that, lacking the intellectual firepower and ammunition to carry the day, the person in question is prepared to try to settle the issue using the kind of firepower and ammunition that any idiot can purchase at a local gunshop.”
Bookman continues: “It also reflects a growing mindset among some that the government just isn’t listening and thus must be made to listen, one way or the other. There’s a fundamental childishness to that attitude, a notion that equates listening to agreement. The person in question is not prepared to accept the idea that having listened to him, a majority of his fellow Americans might decide that he is wrong. So he reserves the right to try to impose his view at the point of a gun.”
This video is from MSNBC’s Hardball, broadcast Aug. 17, 2009 (h/t Talking Points Memo).
Download video via RawReplay.com
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who needs facts or brains when a gun will do the talking for you?
a simple viewing of these morons signs will show that they are unable to spell or know the basics of grammar.
When intellectually unarmed, bring a big gun.
fucking mouth breathing morons.
“White Trash”
They are doing it to scare people. These folks will not accept the election results of November 2008.
It disgusts me to no end to see them prancing aound like some wild west show.
I have no problem with gun ownership. I do have a problem with people who do not have the common sense not to put other peoples lives in jeopardy. If they truly believe their lives are in danger by showing up at these events, that must be why they are carrying weapons, then don’t come to the event. I believe the next venue for this crowd is carrying a gun is my kids school, hey kids are scary.
GOP REPUBLICANS want Americans to “exercise their IRRATIONAL FANTASIES ABOUT Second Amendment rights.”
Republicans PROVED they’re criminals who SUPPORT CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR.
12:30pm live on TV on Nov. 22 1963 from Dallas Texas the World got to see just what the Republican Party can do when they don’t want a President in office. Yes President John F. Kennedy was Assassinated as the last President the GOP tried to assassinate was FDR but they failed on the attempt that time.
Was any of this gun toting encouraged when Bush or Cheney were in public?
If not why is it being encouraged now? I’m eligible to carry a gun. I’m a Obama supporter and I am all for the right to bear arms. But I think ANYONE with a gun who is not affiliated with either the Secret Service or police should not be allowed near a public official for OBVIOUS reasons. Wallace, the Kennedys, Reagan, The Pope, Gerald Ford…etc. This is a no brainer and I think the Secret Service or the President’s office should/could ask for whatever they want…..never stopped George Bush. No guns around the President unless you are Secret Service or have a police badge. So what? Makes perfect sense.
Even someone who has a license to carry a weapon can be a last minute nutcase…and those are EXACTLY the people who would
heed the call from irresponsible and hate mongering Republican officials who should know better.
For as long as I dearly hated Bush for what he did to this nation. It never occurred to me to “wish him to fail”. It never occurred to a Dem. to encourage people to show up at or around the then President Bush armed with a gun. It makes you wonder what has become of the GOP? Is this the best they have for “leadership”? Good at whipping up hate, but little else.
Is the Republican party so fractured that the very poor and uneducated minions will do anything that their conservative, elite tells them to do?
You have very poor Republicans ranting about “socialized medicine” but they are repeating a mantra, not something they’ve really looked into. The monied Republicans use the poor ones as shills. But a shill will never know who they are doing their bidding for….because they usually are not very bright. I saw a town meeting in Dallas today. Everyone in the room was probably on Medicaid and were RAVING mad about the “government run health care ploy”. Say what? Then pull yourself out of medicaid so I can pay less to support YOU. I see that money taken out of each and every paycheck of mine for that program and you stand in front of a room and denounce something that I can directly benefit from?!
Go to hell. Seriously. Die already.
I guess the uninsured working moms and dads of Dallas were too busy that day? I couldn’t tell you where the next town hall is in my area. But I would hazard to guess anyone listening to an AM radio talk station devoted to misinformation knows exactly when/where the next one is…or so it seems.
All this to say, I don’t think someone with a gun should be allowed near any President. And Cheney should never be allowed to hold a rifle unless he’s being closely supervised.
It was a shotgun.
If the Black Panthers showed up and repeated their 1967 state capitol appearance …fully armed…to one of these town hall meetings …especially one that Gingrey was hosting they’d ban guns from these meetings faster than you could blink.
That’s how it happened last time.
Carrying guns was legal until non whites started doing it.
Georgians have a special affinity for gun ownership. The town of Kennesaw has since 1982 required all heads of households, with some exceptions, to own and maintain a gun. The ordinance was passed unanimously.
I don’t know about you guys, but sooner rather than later something is going to happen at one of these congressional townhalls and/or presidential meetings. Because once people saw that first man with a gun and he didn’t get arrested or thrown to the ground, everybody is doing it. The problem is we don’t know if the person holding the gun is sane or not, or looking to go out with a bang. People are stupid, because they can’t look or figure out why this can be dangerous. They think well if this person freak out, I’ll handle him with my weapon or that if this person freaks out he will shoot those people but not me. It’s called dellusional thinking on their part. You have the freedom to yell fire in a movie theater, but you’ll get arrested. And thats because your free speech in that particular instance can lead to somebody being killed or hurt in a rush to get out of the theater. Same with these weapons being brought to these presidential townhalls and such. What if some deranged person started shooting at people in the crowd, the police and/or the secret service won’t know who else is part of the shooting so they will look at anybody that has a weapon as an accomplice. The person bringing the weapon may make himself a target just for being armed in a shootout.
There are really sick people out in this country and the world, and if you let them or give them a platform for their psychosis, they will do damage.
IF this had happened during Chimpy’s reign, the ‘carriers” would be in Gitmo under tight security, in isolation, as we speak. Feels to me like the Secret Service is loosing it’s grip on presidential security. EVEN with the explanation from a veteran Secret Service agent last evening on Rachael’s show explaining the Service’s view of this, seems like security is getting REAL loose…
Can you imagine what would have happened to dems if they brought a gun to a bush rally. We were arrested for wearing a peace sign. double standred..Police do your job..
Squeaky fromm was sent to prison for pointing a unloaded gun at reagan..They need to be arrested like she was.
It was Gerald Ford, not Reagan.
Yeah, that whole “guns openly carried and displayed creates a polite society” bullshit worked really well in the Wild West, didn’t it?
What a fucking moron. One hopes a screwhead brings a gun to one of his townhall meetings. Of course, it’s only an acceptable exercise of your constitutional rights when it happens to someone else.
As a nation, we should openly rail against this horseshit behavior. This clown isn’t promoting 2nd Amendment rights by condoning this activity — he is encouraging asshole wingnuts to bring weapons to a debate about healthcare to intimidate open debate. He is also nudging these paranoid shitsacks closer to pulling the trigger on the opposition, and maybe even the president himself, which is ultimately what the Republicans want. They think it will make 2012 an easier election cyle for them with Obama out of the way. Forget values. Forget righteousness. Forget being an American. There’s a BLACK man in WHITE house, fer god’s sake!
Clowns like this assclown forget one important thing: this president was elected democratically. He represents the nation as a whole and not just the knuckledgragging, web-toed, mouth-breathing shithole state of Georgia. As a result, assholes with guns at his speaking engagements should not even be humored, let alone tolerated. Who gives a fuck about your 2nd Amendment rights when our president is involved? Strap your prosthetic dick on and wear it around church, but don’t bring a goddamned AR-15 to a presidential townhall.
BTW, how fucking often did you see guns at GW Bushler events? That’s right: nonce. You didn’t see any fucking guns at Bushler townhalls because everyone there was prescreened and the wingnuts were rounded up into “Free Speech Zones” to protect this illegitimately seated doofus. Anyone who did so was quickly labeled an enemy combatant, treated as a detainee, shipped off to Guantanamo, and shortly thereafter disappeared.
Fuck this hillbilly chickenhead and all his hillbilly, gun-toting asshole constituents. If these moronic fucks want to refight the Civil War, where do I sign up? We’ll wipe the South’s sorry ass a second time and leave them in a more primitive state than we did the first time around.
The case is Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919).
“The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”
This case is also the source of the phrase “shouting fire in a crowded theater,” paraphrased from Holmes’ assertion that “the most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”
As a result of the 9-0 decision, Charles Schenck spent six months in prison.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
In this case, Schrenk was a Socialist who was denied his First Amendment rights during war time (WWI) for speaking out against the draft. Justice Holmes came up with the “clear and present danger” phrase we use so often today.
In this case, the ruling was against someone who stood on the Left, but should be invoked today against those who show up at these townhall rallies packing heat. Whether on the Left or Right, they are a “clear and present danger” to the public at large.
Just my two cents.
I just saw a clip of Chris saying he brought the gun”because I hate Obama”. Seems reasonable enough to let him have a gun near the president as long as we know where he stands.
If any liberal would’ve brought a weapon to a Republican rally during the last administration, they would’ve been renditioned.
Here’s how our government operates:
1. Threats (”diplomacy”)
2. Violence
Ain’t so neat when the shoe’s on the other foot, is it?
I would say that if there ever is a shot fired at an event where the President is speaking, the Secret Service will conclude the everyone with a gun is a suspect. I think that there will be much carnage if even one shot is fired. I hope they carry their guns to church also, and to the pool, bedroom, any where that they legally can. I don’t know what kind of world they have, but it must be a sorry motherfucker if they can’t walk in it unarmed.
Rightwingers are like children with their gun fascination. Let them join the military - that’s all they are good for.
I can still see cowardly, paranoid little Bush….. any one protesting him or his policies were held in pens, (”free-speech” zones) held in check with armed police, blocks away from any entrance to one of his public speaking events..bet he would have s**t himself if he caught even a glimpse of some one with a gun…..
As far as I’m concerned the Secret Service, FBI should have a visit with this Republican Rep. Gingrey, if any one should take a shot at the President (or anyone at these Town Hall Meetings)..he should be immediately arrested on incitement and conspiracy charges and put in prison for the rest of his life..right there, next to Sirhan Sirhan
The image of gun toting hysterical rightwingnuts with their badly drawn racist signs outside places where Obama is speaking gives me a creepy chill.
Like the local klan have arrived …only sans hoods.
Even if the person carrying arms has no conscious intent other than to look like a visible redneck halfwit… what’s to prevent someone taking their firearm from them and shooting innocent people?
When I go to “town meetin’s” I always carry my “trebushay”.
In many states, “open carry” is the law. If we don’t exercise that right, we will lose it.
Maybe I’ll exercise my right when I come to your house for dinner some night — just a quiet night with family, friends, and firearms. . . .
This is an extreme example — one I don’t condone. But really, dipshit, do you actually believe there’s an effort to revoke your right to bear arms? This fear is cracker-based: whitey sees the awful black man and knows he’s gonna take away our guns (to be shortly followed by “ur jobs,” ur trailers, and ur lottery tickets).
That said, there should be an effort to restrict the ignorant bearing of arms, such as morons with guns at presidential townhalls about healthcare reform, idiots with guns outside grade schools, dickless weaklings with guns at crowded public events.
I exercise my right to free speech on TRS by calling conservatives “jackasses” and “assholes,” which are fitting nameplates. But that doesn’t mean I run around Republican events shouting “asshole” at every person I see, no matter how well-earned the title might be.
Its all fun and games until someone gets hurt.
I agree. You never know when you have to shoot a red neck savage. The trouble is those people think they’re the only ones with guns. Maybe a little shoot back might help clarify their thinking.
Where THE HELL is the secret service?? Eating donuts? Do they only protect the radical right wing? Man, remember the people at the Bush event who were arrested for wearing anti-war tee shirts! Once again we’re paying those bastards and they aren’t even doing their jobs.
The United States Secret Service is and was doing there job,,
Somebody,(Emmanuel) told them to stand down and allow the guns..
NOBODY has the authority to over-ride the Secret Services duty in protecting the President…
This should get Emmanuel charges of endangering the President of the US..
The Congressman encouraging citizens to take guns to rallies should entitle him to inciting violence…
The men behind the scenes(corporations) that are buying people to take guns will also get charged…
Book’em Danno!
The gun advocates are ignoring something here, either deliberately or due to letting their paranoia that someone is coming to take their guns away ha ha, ho ho hee hee etc etc.
Sure, the one clause of non-infringement is the one they shout out loud, and “well-regulated” gets ignored. But OK, forget all that and accept, for argument’s sake, that anyone that feels a pressing need to bring a gun to a presidential appearance has the right to do so. It’s really odd that they never seem to feel this need under a Republican president, but, OK, forget that too.
However, those who choose to exercise their right to bring guns to a presidential appearance should also remember that the Secret Service’s job is to recognize, isolate and eliminate all threats and potential threats to the president. Bring a gun to a presidential appearance, and they do not, and should not, give a flying fuck if you have brought a gun merely to exercise your Second Amendment rights, or if you think you are then next incarnation of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Bring a gun, and you are a potential threat and should be watched, and should you make any kind of move that could be interpreted as a threat to the president, you should be eliminated. That is the job of the Secret Service. Provoke them at your own peril. If you get shot while your only intention was trying to tie your shoelace, you have only yourself to blame.
Bring your guns to a target range or a hunting excursion. Deer don’t shoot back if you make a move they interpret as threatening. The Secret Service will. If you are going to a presidential appearance, and you are not a part of the Law Enforcement detail or the Secret Service detail, leave your guns at home. I promise no one will be seizing them in your absence, no matter what the NRA or Fox Noise tells you.
Since when did owning and carrying a firearm become evil? You who have come to believe that are brainwashed pawns of the leftist media.
This is quite possibly the single stupidest thing I have ever read in my life. You have achieved a new low-level of retard, conservative asshole.
The issue isn’t about carrying them.
It’s about why suddenly they’re being allowed to be carried around in an area where the President is.
I admit my leftist sensibilities make me wonder why I couldn’t have carried one around where George W Bush appeared or Dick Cheney… and I guarantee you that I probably would have been arrested back then or atleast detained and questioned by the Secret Service for even suggesting it online.
The media ISN’T leftist …if it were then the whole healthcare issue would have gotten a better shake and they would have investigated the ties between the protesters and the insurance lobbyists better.
Carrying them isn’t evil. It isn’t smart either.
In fact,… I think it’s kinda chickenshit.
I used to live in one of the most dangerous areas in the US where gangsta’s packed Uzi’s openly. Cops got shot regularly there.
I used to walk around armed all the time, but then one day I decided ‘fuck that’… I didn’t want the legal hassles and I didn’t want to provoke violence either (which is what acting like a moronic cowboy gets you) Mostly I just decided to go back to studying martial arts because I wanted to be able to defend myself without any weapons.
Carrying a weapon is an act of advertising your fear… or intimidating those that don’t.
When I was still a teen a friend of mine “borrowed” my shotgun… he got in a fight with a neighbour down the street …got my gun (I was out of town at the time) and he went up and shot it out with that guy and wound up with a bullet in his gut. When weapons are around people use them.
That’s why I think it’s retarded to carry them.
ALL GEORGIA LIBERALS: pack your laded weapons and go to Gingrey’s office and demand a meeting with him, weapons in tow.
These guys are just reminding “gun Grabbing” OBama and friends that he has no business grabbing guns.
The second amendment is clear for BOTH left and right that its for protection against a tryanical government, especially one that will not get rid of the patriot act and continues to bail out banks.
moronmoronmoron
Even better: all African American Georgians show up with weapons and see how you’re treated. Send in the Black Panthers with street sweepers and AK47s, and have them peacefully protest in front of this dickhead’s home.
Have video cameras rolling to expose these cracker KKK sonsofbitches.
Maybe they can manage to do like the Black Panthers in Sacramento back in the 70’s? Get weapons banned in public for everyone.
the 2009 spin will be: Find some retired retard who has a conceal carry permit to fuck it up for everyone. Or alternatively, find any retard to fuck it up for all of us.
(no offense to the disabled your not retarded)
Tick Tock… nothing but time on the likelyhood to trick some idiot into it.
Hey if the punishment isn’t so bad and your already retired why not change the US Constitution with the gift of the “ultimate fuck you” for the future?
Something will be so heinous that the laws will change.
Personally, I hope it doesn’t happen.
Yet, I have to predict it.
But at the same time, how stupid is that to even carry such shit to such an event? Where at least the possibliity some idiot trys to take it off you, and go postal? That’s the argument to change the law right there. People are way to stupid to know their rights, and when to shut the fuck up.
But if you step back you will see there is no law anymore.
The laws are only for us. Not our officials. Hint: FISA, PATRIOT ACT, BANKSTERS
Do I like the fact that the Black Panthers carried heat back in the 70’s? no not really, I think it’s bad judgement. Even though nobody got hurt. The potential for a shotgun to do some real damage sux.
It’s that common sense that brought that back down to Earth, (Willie asking wtf you doing joe) we lack in society today. Now we have whiny babies which our brainwashed 20 somethings tazer, shoot, beat the fuck out of any slightly quicker than normal movement. And this with un-armed folks.
There is no free speech. The Spectrum is saturated with corporate crap. So it’s no wonder people can be talked into showing up like this. Nobody want’s to dig through the dirty DIY/indie un credited real journalists for the truth, it’s easier to feel good with the bump of the corporate needle.
Don’t argue with me about Georgia or Texas or California, I don’t care. I know what I was taught about the Constitution as a child and what I swore an oath to as an adult.
Should they be able to be there? Yes.
Should they be there? No.
End of discussion, we already have laws for murder.