AMERICA GONE MAD!

It all started with the recent (often heated) Congressional Town Hall meetings.  First one person, then two, then ten.  Then it quickly spread to President Obama’s Town Hall meetings and suddenly local police and the Secret Service were forced to take notice.  What is it about a Town Hall Health Care forum with a member of Congress or the President of the United States in which ANYONE  says “I THINK I SHOULD TAKE MY GUN!”
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On Monday, President Obama spoke to a gathering of local citizens in Phoenix. Mingling among the attendees were about a dozen people carrying guns, including one man with a military-style assault rifle slung over his shoulder.  To some rational thinking people this is absolutely ludicrous and a disaster waiting to happen.  But to gun-rights advocates, they say they are simply exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest.  Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday’s event, including the man carrying the military style semi-automatic rifle 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.

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Granted, this is still America and still the land of the free.  But have we finally taken the idea of guns too far?  The Secret Service is already stretched enough trying to protect the first African American President in U.S. history.  Surely they don’t need the additional pressure of hundreds of citizens showing up to a presidential rally with loaded assault rifles in hand. Oddly, in Arizona this “wild wild west” mentality is perfectly legal.  But just because someone CAN do something doesn’t always mean it’s a good idea for them to exercise that choice.  Exactly what purpose does a fully loaded semi-automatic AR-15 assault rifle serve at a local community gathering attended by the President of the United States?  These Town Hall meetings have been short on rational thinking, high on emotion, and known to quickly get out of hand.  Just combine one angry citizen shouting at another; a large crowd of conservatives protesting against their liberal counterparts;  throw in a few beer-brazened racists, some racial name-calling and the thick Arizona heat;  add in the nation’s first black President; then sprinkle in an assorted potpourri of a dozen or more pistols, firearms, semi-automatic, and military style assault rifles, and you’ve found the recipe for a cataclysmic catastrophe waiting to happen.

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