Quote:
Openly wearing a gun with a sign that specifically promotes a message of insurrection (one of my favorite Jeffersonian quotes, by the way) at a Presidential "Town Hall" meeting, does nothing to promote an image of responsible gun ownership, but does promote an image of gun-owners being kooks.
That's the bottom line
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If you believe that exercising your rights in a lawful manner "does promote an image of gun-owners being kooks" then I wonder about how one does go about exercising those rights without looking like a kook?
Where do we draw the line? How do we define "appropriate" behavior? Do we define it by other's standards who are not in agreement with our own? Slippery slope.
Regardless of your own personal opinion, whether you believed that his actions were "smart" or not, acting in a lawful manner, causing no physical harm, being rather "cool under fire" during the interview, I have respect for a man/woman who actually lives by his beliefs.
What if 50 people did the same with the same results? What if 1,000? What if more than half the population? Should not matter how many exercise the right, the right exists; popular or not, The Bill of Rights has been around for a while and exercising the rights contained within only helps to maintain those rights.
While is should not matter how frequently a right is exercised, in reality it does. I would venture to guess that the British considered the colonists a bunch of "kooks" and worse at times; not to mention that they were illegally defying the British crown.
Some folks believe that a "Right" is right. (See sig line.)
I am all for promoting responsible gun ownership. However, calling law abiding citizens exercising their rights as contained in our founding documents "kooks" I do not agree with. It well may turn out that the man in question can be shown to be a "kook", but it should not be from his actions being discussed; namely exercising his "Constitutional/Bill of Rights" rights, especially from a group of people who support and promote "responsible gun ownership".