[Video] Gun Rights Supporters Take Over Anti-Gun Presentation

[Video] Gun Rights Supporters Take Over Anti-Gun Presentation, Veteran Stands Up to Anti-Gun Organizers Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Veteran Kevin Tully- After enduring hours of derision and mockery by the panelists at a Chicago-area guns “forum” Sunday, one man in the audience stood up and addressed the crowd, identified himself as a veteran, and proceeded to give a straightforward but passionate defense of his support for the First and Second Amendments.

“Now, the thing I would like you to answer, sir. And I did go to war for this country. Whether it was for everyone in here’s ability to have oil and gas in their cars, or the banks, or whatever. I went to war for my country. And I went to war for your ability to have the First Amendment, to say what you stood up there and said today, to write what you want to write in your newspaper, and have whatever opinion you want to have. You can practice whatever religious freedoms you want. I would like you to answer the question, since you just said that one of the rights that I went to war over to defend, that is inalienable, to every American citizen. If this discussion was going on, about your First Amendment rights, would you still have the same opinion that we don’t need that any more either.”

http://gunssavelives.net/blog/video-gun-rights-supporters-take-over...

http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/01/veteran-stands-up-for-2nd-amen...

When I OC (legal throught Virginia) I am also exercising my 1st Amend right.

I am telling people that what I am doing is legal. It is an educational thing, something in which I am involved every time I go out and about.

I OC at restaurants, shopping, city hall, and even our General Assembly building. There are times it is a great conversation starter - education by example. Always try to give people that question me information of this site and VCDL.

Grapeshot said:

When I OC (legal throught Virginia) I am also exercising my 1st Amend right.

I am telling people that what I am doing is legal. It is an educational thing, something in which I am involved every time I go out and about.

I OC at restaurants, shopping, city hall, and even our General Assembly building. There are times it is a great conversation starter - education by example. Always try to give people that question me information of this site and VCDL.

Click to expand...

Agreed, except in Idaho it doesn't happen very often with folks. I think its just becoming more accepted to see someone open carrying and that the response I get more often is "hey that's a nice gun you've got their".

Grapeshot said:

When I OC (legal throught Virginia) I am also exercising my 1st Amend right.

I am telling people that what I am doing is legal. It is an educational thing, something in which I am involved every time I go out and about.

I OC at restaurants, shopping, city hall, and even our General Assembly building. There are times it is a great conversation starter - education by example. Always try to give people that question me information of this site and VCDL.

Click to expand...

When I OC (legal throughout Washington I am also exercising my 1st Amend right.

I am telling people that what I am doing is legal. It is an educational thing, something in which I am involved every time I go out and about.

I OC at restaurants, shopping, city hall, and even our General Assembly building. There are times it is a great conversation starter - education by example. Always try to give people that question me information of this site. It is what we all do whenever we interact with people.

You said that well Grape.

MSG Laigaie said:

When I OC (legal throughout Washington I am also exercising my 1st Amend right.

I am telling people that what I am doing is legal. It is an educational thing, something in which I am involved every time I go out and about.

I OC at restaurants, shopping, city hall, and even our General Assembly building. There are times it is a great conversation starter - education by example. Always try to give people that question me information of this site. It is what we all do whenever we interact with people.

You said that well Grape.

Click to expand...

There are just some things too good not to share - it is the RIGHT thing to do. (pun intended)

Hopefully we are contagious.

bhdpal said:

[Video]“Now, the thing I would like you to answer, sir. And I did go to war for this country. Whether it was for everyone in here’s ability to have oil and gas in their cars, or the banks, or whatever. I went to war for my country. And I went to war for your ability to have the First Amendment, to say what you stood up there and said today, to write what you want to write in your newspaper, and have whatever opinion you want to have. You can practice whatever religious freedoms you want. I would like you to answer the question, since you just said that one of the rights that I went to war over to defend, that is inalienable, to every American citizen. If this discussion was going on, about your First Amendment rights, would you still have the same opinion that we don’t need that any more either.”

Click to expand...

The video's old, probably more than a year, but it's a good one.

The overarching principle is that fears do not trump rights. Rights are freedoms. That includes both the freedom to do things as well as be free from things. I should be free to shoot on my property. However, that freedom isn't absolute, as my neighbor has has a right to be free from the constant din of gunfire. He has a right to enjoy his own property without hearing me shoot at 3 AM. Thus, a socially responsible gun owner will limit themselves to shooting for reasonably brief periods during the day. If they can't figure out how to be socially responsible, the law will intervene and force them to limit themselves or face civil and possibly criminal penalties. Those who are socially irresponsible are often referred to as "jerks" or far worse, are usually given two-thumbs down throughout polite society, and are generally not welcome in polite company.

When my right to carry a firearm faces another's right to safety, it's no longer cut and dried. Nor, however, is it about the way they "feel." It becomes a matter of what's reality. What is real, and what is not real. If they feel threatened by the fact I carry a firearm, are their feelings valid? Or is it a phobia (irrational fear)? A federal judge has already ruled (St. John vs Alamagordo) cites Duran, 904 F.2d at 1378, which holds that "If there is one irreducible minimum in our Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, it is that a police officer may not detain an individual simply on the basis of suspicion in the air. No matter how peculiar, abrasive, unruly or distasteful a person's conduct may be, it cannot justify a police stop unless it suggests that some specific crime has been, or is about to be, committed or that there is an imminent danger to persons or property." Judge Black also cites Lawrence Rosenthal, Second Amendment Plumbing after Heller: Standards of Scrutiny, Incorporation, Well-Regulated Militias, and Criminal Street Gangs, 41 Urb. Law. 1, 37 (2009) (“When applicable law does not ban carrying a firearm, however, the Fourth Amendment does not permit a stop-and-frisk regardless of any indication that a suspect is armed or potentially dangerous because there is no indication that the suspect is violating the law.”

These and many similar cases have clearly established that fears do not trump rights. The prohibited display of genitalia notwithstanding, a parishioner's fear that skimpy bathing suits will cause the world to go to hell in a hand basket do not trump the right of someone to wear a skimpy bathing suit. The same is true of firearms: A person's fear of firearms does not trump the right of someone to keep (own) and bear (carry) arms.

In St. John vs Alamagordo, the police, rather amazingly, ask the court to "find, in essence, that anyone who is armed is, by virtue of that fact, dangerous." Judge Black's response is noteworthy: "In light of the extensive, controlling and compelling jurisprudence to the contrary, the Court declines to do so."

Judge Black's statement confirms reality: Fear of a threat does not constitute an actual threat, and is therefore no grounds whatsoever for infringing on the right to keep and bear arms.

Such irrational fear, however, may very well be grounds for it's beholder to seek psychiatric help.

OC Freedom said:

Agreed, except in Idaho it doesn't happen very often with folks. I think its just becoming more accepted to see someone open carrying and that the response I get more often is "hey that's a nice gun you've got their".

Click to expand...

When I'd go hiking north of Sandpoint, I always OC'd, both on the trail, as well as in town.