Guns That Talk

It's like truth or dare. And it's legal.

Get your
permit or whatever and you, too, can bring an assault rifle to the next
presidential speech you attend. There's nothing the police can do -- amazing! If only the Democrats, back when George Bush was president,
had known there was a safe, legal way to protest presidential policy
and register discontent with the direction the country was headed. Can
you imagine?

I ponder
the phenomenon of gun speech -- the amplified malevolence of the
inarticulate -- and hope, pray that it fizzles out quickly in its
current manifestation: as a presence at town hall meetings on health
care, at appearances by President Obama, at any random venue in which
the nation's future is being discussed. I fear, however, that this is
going to catch on, and if it does, well . . . the line in the sand has
been drawn. At what point did public sanity cease to be a value?

Consider what life was like, oh, let's say five years ago. Here's a slice of news from July 4, 2004:

Nicole and
Jeff Rank were arrested in Charleston, W.Va. -- handcuffed, hustled
away, charged with trespassing -- because they were wearing T-shirts
that said "Love America, Hate Bush" on the grounds of the state capitol
on the day George Bush was scheduled to make a speech there. The
Charleston Gazette further reported that those who applied for tickets
to hear Bush's speech "were required to supply their names, addresses,
birth dates, birthplaces and Social Security numbers."

That was
then: "Free speech zones" were the norm; protesters were routinely
whisked out of sight at every Bush appearance, even though, you know,
we have a First Amendment and all.

This is
now: A dozen guys with guns gathered outside a convention center in
Phoenix on Monday as President Obama spoke. At least two of them had
assault rifles slung over their shoulders. "Phoenix police said the men
carrying guns at Monday's event did not need permits, as the state of
Arizona has an 'open carry' law," the U.K. Telegraph reported. "No
crimes were committed, and no one was arrested."

A few days
earlier, in Portsmouth, N.H., a man with a pistol strapped to his leg,
holding a sign that read "It is time to water the tree of liberty,"
stood outside the local high school where Obama addressed a town hall
meeting on health care. Another man was, in fact, arrested in
Portsmouth that day because he had a loaded, unlicensed gun in his
parked truck.

And, oh
yeah, on Aug. 5, at a town hall meeting sponsored by Democratic
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, at a supermarket in Douglas, Ariz., a
guy carrying a holstered pistol beneath his armpit was escorted off the
premises by police when the weapon fell to the floor and bounced as he
bent over. He wasn't arrested.

This
phenomenon has several layers of tangled complexity: The first concerns
the motives of the gun toters. Why would they bring a lethal weapon to
a public event? Surely not out of fear for their personal safety. (If
you're that scared, just stay home, OK?) They're obviously making a
point. The one I'm getting is: See this, punk? I'm not going to kill
you, but I could. Yammer all you want, but just be aware that I'm the
serious one here. (Those whose weapons were concealed may have been
making the same point, but only for their own reassurance of
self-worth.)

More
troubling and puzzling is the official nonchalance with which these
incidents are being met. Considering that, in the Bush era, security
personnel at every level were quick to find laws that superseded free
speech whenever the president showed his face in public, how can lethal firepower -- more dangerous than a T-shirt -- be tolerated in the vicinity of the president of the United States?

Is it that
we fear words and ideas more than inarticulate rage? Is it that there's
a soft spot in the American heart for racist simmer? Do armed he-men
exhibitionists require maternal coddling? Have we forgotten that four
American presidents have been assassinated? Have we crossed the line
that separates debate and disagreement from civil war?

Just
asking. I don't think we have, but I do think we could. Guns are,
indeed, speech: Carry one and you can't help but make an aggressive
statement about what you believe and what you are capable of doing. A
gun that goes off is something else again, however. It hardly matters
whether the firing is accidental or intentional, because the
consequences always have the potential to eclipse, tragically, the
limited intentions -- the "speech" -- of the shooter.

My prayer
is that we find the courage to grope for our common future together,
and that the invisible infrastructure of public respect remains intact.
This means we must check our weapons, but not our ideas, as we enter
the debate.