Posted on 08/15/2009 6:36:52 PM PDT by kristinn
To the increasingly toxic American mix of racial anger, political frustration and economic despair, a frightening new ingredient was added last week — belligerent gun-owners on a mission to defy President Barack Obama.
A series of minor but worrying incidents involving citizens carrying handguns to political meetings has raised new questions about the president’s security and a potentially inflammatory gun control issue that he has so far managed to avoid.
When William Kostric, a 36-year-old gun-owner from New Hampshire, turned up near an Obama meeting last Tuesday with a 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol strapped to his leg, he instantly became a hero to millions of US gun-owners who have long been convinced that the president and his Democratic allies are plotting a sweeping crackdown on gun ownership in America.
Kostric was waving a crudely drawn protest placard that referred obscurely to an inflammatory quotation by former president Thomas Jefferson, who once wrote that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants”.
Yet once police concluded that Kostric was carrying the gun legally under relaxed New Hampshire weapons laws, and that he was waving his sign on private property, no action was taken against him.
The incident stunned gun control advocates and many other Americans who have begun to fear for Obama’s safety amid the heated debate over healthcare reform. There have been several other instances of guns being taken to political meetings, and reports of healthcare protesters urging gun-owners to exercise their rights to carry concealed weapons to meetings where legal.
SNIP
Yet Obama's aides privately acknowledge that the last thing they want, as the president attempts to calm tempers over healthcare issues, is a bitter debate over gun control.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
If you have one, or can share links to help, it would be sincerely appreciated.
The Dems are working from “talking points” IMHO, and that can't be good for Obama or America.
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