Ohio Republicans push Protected Class for CC owners, not LGBT workers, forcing private Businesses to allow guns on Property

What an odd idea from the Republicans overlords in Ohio...

Two top Statehouse heavyweights — gun-rights supporters and business advocates — are battling over a bill that would make concealed-carry permit holders a protected class under employment discrimination.

How do they find the time to come up with these Bizarro World right wing socialist schemes every single day of the week?

While 16 states don't offer any LGBT protections in the workplace, public or private, Ohio is pushing protected class status for concealed carry owners at work?

While Republicans argue against requiring business owners to sell wedding cakes to gay customers, they're completely okay with requiring businesses to allow CC on their properties:

Business groups including the Ohio Chamber of Commerce and the Ohio Manufacturers’ Associaton oppose the bill, arguing it creates new liabilities and increased uncertainty for business owners who should be able to regulate their private property as they see fit.

In the employment discrimination bill, Senate Bill 199, which should get final approval today ... the LGBT community expressed frustration after unsuccessfully advocating for years that they be granted employment discrimination protections.

...don't forget our dangerous college campuses...

The Ohio Senate voted 23-9 late Wednesday to again expand areas where concealed-carry permit holders can carry their handguns — including, potentially, on public and private college and university campuses.

Tennessee forcing anti-gun Americans with fines and lawsuits, real freedom and liberty like....

You might remember Rep. Bob Gannon's proposal to force people who don't want to around guns to change their minds, or literally pay the price. Extortion. 

Gannon’s proposal, dubbed the “Disarmed Citizen Compensation Act,” would go a step further in discouraging gun-free zones by allowing a victim of gun violence to sue businesses with such bans and recover triple the amount of damages without regard to who was at fault.

Gannon's bill is a copy cat idea he lifted from Tennessee, proving he's no deep thinker. Aren't big government Republicans always talking about passing laws unique to their state? More total bull. Shouldn't gun owners have the insurance, and not every damn place they decide to go? Screwy. 

Mark my words, soon enough, everyone will be required to carry a gun or pay a fee to go without:

Tennessee law now dictates that businesses wishing to create a "gun-free zone" will be held liable for the safety of concealed carry permit holders.

The new law, SB 1736, dictates that should any concealed carry permit holder's safety be threatened after disarming themselves to enter their place of business, then the business will be held liable. The business will also be held liable if the permit holder incurs injury while "retreating from the business to a vehicle–during an emergency–to retrieve the gun the business owner barred," according to Breitbart. The bill passed the state Senate 26 to 4 earlier in March and passed the House by a vote of 77 to 13 in April. The law went into effect on July 1.

Below is a a summary of SB 1736:

Present law authorizes persons in control of property to post a notice that prohibits firearms on the premises. This bill imposes a duty of care on any person who posts their property to prohibit firearms whereby such person will be responsible for the safety of any handgun carry permit holder while the permit holder is on the posted premises and traversing any area to and from the premises and the location where the permit holder’s firearm is stored. The duty of care created by this bill will extend to the conduct of other invitees, trespassers, employees of the person or entity, vicious animals, wild animals, and defensible man-made and natural hazards.

Anti-Concealed Carry Laws Trashed by Activist Conservative Supreme Court.

Believe it or not, before NRA lobbying for the gun industry and right wing fear and zealotry, gun regulation made a lot of sense:

Anti-concealed carry laws not only existed but were ubiquitous from the Colonial period through the start of the 20th century. Forty-five states adopted such laws, with most enacted in the early 19th century. They were a reaction to rising crime and interpersonal violence, especially in the South and the so-called Wild West, where anti-gun carry laws were rapidly put in place when cities and towns were established.

The laws often clearly stated what had motivated their passage. For example, New Jersey’s 1686 law imposed concealed carry restrictions by saying that “no person or persons … shall presume privately to wear any pocket pistol … or other unusual or unlawful weapons within this Province” because the practice induced “great Fear and Quarrels.” An 1821 Tennessee law sought to punish anyone “so degrading himself” by carrying prohibited weapons including pistols. Georgia’s 1837 law began: “An Act to guard and protect the citizens of this State, against the unwarrantable and too prevalent use of deadly weapons.” Alabama’s 1839 anti-concealed carry law was titled “An Act to Suppress the Evil Practice of Carrying Weapons Secretly.” Delaware’s 1852 law targeted “all who go armed offensively to the terror of the people.” The point was unmistakable: Anyone who carried a concealed gun was probably up to no good.

Robert J. Spitzer is a professor of political science at the State University of New York at Cortland. He is the author of five books on gun policy, most recently, “Guns Across America: Reconciling Gun Rules and Rights.”

Missouri makes it Easier to Shoot Each Other.

Even in the old wild west, towns collected guns from those entering the city limits. Obviously, they didn’t think to take an “originalist” look at the Constitution.

Missouri is smarter than traditional real Americans still discovering the country.

Missouri lawmakers passed yet another dangerous pro-gun law this year …  this one would allow people to carry a concealed weapon — with no training and no permit.

Basically, it’s called constitutional carry. No limits. Could it be our genius founding fathers wanted everyone to have a load gun with them?

Finally saying what I never found the right words to say myself, and combining “constitutional carry” with “stand your ground/Castle Doctrine” laws:

Sen. Jason Holsman, a Kansas City Democrat noted: “We’re essentially authorizing a citizen without training to have a firearm. Then another citizen who is afraid that that citizen has a firearm can shoot and kill them, because they feel they’re in fear for their life because that untrained citizen has a firearm.”

That’s what this whole thing is going to meltdown to someday, if it isn't already happening.

Oh, and speaking of Missouri's "stand your ground" law...that was also changed, as Sen. Holsman indicated above....

The lawmakers also approved a controversial “stand your ground law” ... It would expand the self-defense claim that citizens already can use in a shooting to make them even more likely to get away with an unjustified shooting.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/yael-t-abouhalkah/article79997087.html?platform=hootsuite#storylink=cpy

Republicans now want strangers with guns in and around schools to protect irresponsible concealed carry loons.

This is a joke, right? I’ve been saying for some time now many of the new gun laws were created to protect irresponsible gun owners. People that “forget” or irresponsibly don’t care if they’re breaking state law carrying their gun in banned areas are getting an assist from their elected irresponsible Republican lawmakers.

Incredibly, our loony tunes Republican Sen. Mary Lazich admitted as much. JS:

Senate President Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) said the measure is intended to make sure weapons permit holders aren't inadvertently committing crimes when they drop their kids off at school. "I don't want to see that happen to well intentioned law-abiding people," she said in an interview.

See? She couldn’t get any clearer than that. Rewarding the irresponsible? Sure. One superintendent got it:

"I struggle with the fact we need a law to protect someone that forgets they had their gun with them while taking their children to school," said Phil Ertl, superintendent of the Wauwatosa School District.

The reasons given by these gun crazy, poor excuses for adults, run the gamut:

Republican Rep. Robert Brooks said he he would feel terrible if there were a school shooting and parents and teachers told him afterward they didn't have a chance to defend themselves because of state law. "We're not opening it to the wild west, if you will."

Rep. Jesse Kremer (R-Kewaskum) is backing the bill. If some teachers were allowed to carry guns, they could fight back if their classrooms were attacked. "Right now, it's a soft target — no one's carrying," he said of schools. Kremer promoted a "campus carry" bill in the fall that would have allowed students and faculty to carry guns in university and college buildings. Kremer said he hoped the one for K-12 schools would get traction.

I think  Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett summed it up best:

"This is insane," Barrett said in an interview. "Isn't there anybody in the majority party that wants to get serious about gun violence?"

Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn: "Given the fact that law enforcement agencies are explicitly prohibited under our current (concealed weapons) law from analyzing their own data to determine the impact — both positive and negative — of the 2011 law, I am curious to see what information Representative Brooks has collected and used to determine that the law has been, as he says, effective."

Jeri Bonavia, executive director of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort, said she was concerned about those with permits carrying guns in schools and then getting enraged, and alluded to Rep. Bob Gannon (R-Slinger) — a gun rights advocate — flipping off a Democratic leader on the Assembly floor on Tuesday. "We have lawmakers with permits who can't control their middle fingers," Bonavia said.

Local school boards would be able to decide if anyone could carry weapons inside school buildings where instruction is provided. If they barred weapons from those buildings, they would have to post signs at each entrance noting guns weren't allowed.

Oh, and where are the Democrats?

Scott Walker tosses 2nd Amendment at public event announcing presidential run. What, law abiding citizens are dangerous?

Until the party who insisted we'd all be safer with an armed public, start walking-the-walk with no firearm restrictions at their political events, we can assume they're not only hypocrites but intimidated wimps hiding behind macho talk of "guns, freedom and liberty."

I'm challenging Wisconsin Carry Inc. to make their point loud and clear at the Waukesha County Expo, instead of just strutting their stuff at public farmers markets and grocery stores. Get the governors attention and honest position on CC and open carry, because right now he thinks law abiding gun owning citizens are scary and dangerous:

The Second Amendment of our Federal constitution explicitly affirms one of the limitless numbers of rights we enjoy as human beings... The right to keep and bear arms. We believe that "Open-Carry" and "Conceal Carry" are choices to be made by law-abiding citizens based on what suits their needs best.- Wisconsin Carry Inc.

Hat tip to Political Heat for noticing.

I thought this tweet was a bit ironic and insulting to our heavily armed civilian militia, suggesting law abiding gun owners would even think to threaten Walker. If anything, having them in the crowd to protect Walker is a big plus:

Gun toting losers likely to kill people, not for self-defense!!!

Looks like the gun lobby hasn't been able to hide all the available statistics to determine the effect guns have on society:

A new study attempts to debunk the claim that gun owners rely on their firearms for self-defense.

The Violence Policy Center released a study Wednesday that finds people are much more likely to use a gun to kill someone without cause than to protect themselves. According to the study, gun owners committed 259 justifiable homicides compared to 8,342 criminal homicides in 2012, the most recent year data was available.

That means gun owners are 32 times more likely to kill someone without cause than to act in self-defense, the study reasoned.

The Best case against Guns.

Sadly it took an Australian to "Hulk Smash" EVERY ridiculous argument about guns and the 2nd Amendment. Down Under's gun ban is working out quite well.

Australian comedian Jim Jefferies was the victim of a home invasion once. He was tied up and beaten, and his girlfriend was threatened with rape. So you might think he'd sympathize with the idea that Americans want guns to protect their families. Quite the opposite — he does an excellent job of summing up why so many foreigners are baffled by America's gun culture:

One Republican success story: We all need guns now to protect ourselves from a violent armed society, part 1.

When republicans didn't like how businesses were harmed by city voters that passed paid sick leave laws, they jumped into action and banned local regulations statewide. Problem solved.

When republicans saw a shocking rise in Milwaukee residents getting murdered on the streets they…said it was Milwaukee’s problem. Priorities. 

And that’s one of the more deadly ways republicans run state government.

After 3 years of declining homicide rates, the avalanche of lax gun laws and the shifting social attitudes about our new gun culture are now eating away at our social fabric. The effects of change are slow but predictable.

Watch in amazement as Rep Jim Steineke feigned surprise by Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s accusation that recently passed gun laws are taking their toll. He asked, what laws? Really, Rep. Steineke, you can’t point to one law passed in the last 4 years that may have caused this surge in gun violence?

Here's a little help for Steineke, who didn't do himself any favors by asking "What particular law did we pass that led to this increase in gun violence? I can't think of one possible bill that we passed over the last four years that has anything to do with the increase in violence." Of course republicans are asking for irrefutable proof there's a connection, like supply side economics creating high wage jobs...okay, maybe that's not a good example.

1. How about our more lenient Deadly Force/Castle/Stand Your Ground Law, where we can now settle arguments more permanently.

2. Maybe Rep. Steineke doesn’t remember when our gun loving Republican bullies in the legislature rammed open carry down our throats. Hey, who would have thought road rage would be made so much easier by allowing guns to be openly carried in our vehicles? Silly us.

3. Oh, and now republicans are choosing to get rid of a common sense 48 hour cooling off period so crimes of passion and social disagreements are guaranteed to increase and end badly.

4. And it's what republicans didn't do, like closing the gun show and personal gun sales loophole.

Maybe someday we'll have real discussion over the societal change brought about by arming everyday citizens. It's amazing we let a small portion of our society, spurred on by an activist conservative Supreme Courts misreading of the 2nd Amendment, make guns just another hand held devise, not unlike a smart phone, that we'll simply start using without even thinking.

NRA Myths Busted & Gun crazy convention goers were sitting targets for armed attackers (yet nothing happened).

It appears our fanatical gun drooling concealed carry bots don't even trust their fellow armed and obsessed "law abiding citizens:"

The National Rifle Association will hold its annual convention April 10-12 in Nashville. Here's a breakdown of what you need to know:  "16 acres of guns," according to an ad for the event; All guns on the convention floor will be nonoperational, with the firing pins removed, and any guns purchased during the NRA convention will have to be picked up at a Federal Firearms License dealer…

Media Matter's hit the nail on the head by throwing the NRA's own talking points back at them. Funny, gun hobbyists have not yet responded to this obvious hypocrisy:

NRA To Host "Marquee" Event In A "Gun-Free Zone" After Describing Such Places As Advertisements For An "Insane Killer" - NRA's Wayne LaPierre Recently Fear-mongered About Terror Attack On Gun-Free Mall.

At the same time, new research is backing up what has been painfully obvious to many of us; guns kill people, and don't make us safer. What a revelation...from MotherJones:

New Harvard Research Debunks the NRA's Favorite Talking Points: 

Anyone familiar with the gun debate has heard the talking points of the National Rifle Association and other gun rights advocates: "Carrying a gun for self-defense makes you safer." Or: "If only more ordinary citizens were armed, they could stop mass shootings" ... these arguments don't stand up to scrutiny. After the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, commented on another long-running assertion from the gun lobby: "There is no evidence that having more guns reduces crime," he told the New York Times.

Here's a little background, and a graph showing some of their findings:

Hemenway says that some in the media have continued to treat such assertions as legitimate points of debate. That leaves the public thinking, "Okay, so there's disagreement on this," he says … so he set about surveying a wide range of experts on guns. The Harvard team has completed nine surveys so far, with about 100 researchers responding to each: They show that a clear majority of experts do not buy the NRA's arguments (see the growing dataset here). 

"Responsible" gun owners in Kansas exempt from Responsibility!

I always thought it was kind of funny how "responsible" gun owners were always promoting laws that exempted them from being responsible, like accidentally carrying on gun on school grounds.

And so it goes in Kansas, as it follows 5 other states that have made it easier to be an irresponsible but respected responsible concealed gun owner.

And all I got was this sticker...

Reuters: Kansas residents will be allowed to carry concealed weapons in the state without training or a permit starting in July … Governor Sam Brownback said in a statement, "Responsible gun ownership – for protection and sport – is a right inherent in our Constitution." 

Isn't it funny the things you have to go through to be a responsible voter, but when it comes to guns you don't need anything?

One nation under Guns...pt.2

Wonk Blog's Emily Badger is the third person to catch on to the real problem we're facing in our new gun loving America (I was the first, and Voxdotcom the second). And you can thank our conservative activist supreme court for dramatically misreading the 2nd Amendment.

I'm encouraged by this article and what I hope becomes a serious debate. If nothing happens, we're all in big trouble.

Like many others, I have often pointed to the preamble to the constitution as a way to solve some of these judicial mistakes:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

But...At the Cornell University Law School website, they wrote this about the preamble that surprised me:

"Courts will not interpret the Preamble to confer any rights or powers not granted specifically in the Constitution."

I'm hoping that's just an opinion. Here's what our conservative justices foisted off on us, without a serious thought of the consequences:

Guns change the equation in so many ways. They make it harder for police to retreat, and more likely that a stand-off that might have been resolved peacefully will escalate. They make it harder for police to give suspects the benefit of the doubt, and more likely that a suspected criminal may not deserve it.

They make it easier for a mentally ill man to forever alter two families' lives in the name of "revenge."

After the killing of New York police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos over the weekend, it feels perhaps more satisfying to place blame elsewhere: on protesterswho've cried for better policing, on public officials who acknowledge that the protesters' grievances are valid. But both claims deflect attention toward a vague culprit — "anti-police rhetoric" — and away from a more concrete and systemic one: the ever-presence and easy availability of guns. In this country, by contrast, the ubiquity of firearms — the possibility of a gun, legal or illegal, in any coat pocket or waist band — injects a level of tension into police encounters that may be hard to entirely disarm even with the most thoughtful community policing reforms.

In the United States, the ever-presence of guns makes it seem plausible that a 12-year-old boy handling a toy might actually possess one. And it makes it more likely that an officer responding to him would pull his own trigger. The ever-presence of guns also makes it plausible that an officer interacting with a teenager might fear for his life — and act in that fear. And it makes it plausible — even responsible — that communities who often encounter law enforcement feel they must teach their sons how to respond to policemen capable of killing them.

"There’s not a big gun culture in Australia," Geoffrey Alpert, a professor at the University of South Carolina who has studied police use of force there, recently told me. "So the cops don’t have to worry the way our cops do. There’s not always a gun in every encounter. They don’t have to think about that." They're freer to retreat, to reassess, to leave their own weapons holstered.

It's the Taliban, now we're outraged.

Really, in country where our own citizens target children in schools, we’re outraged now, demanding action?

Even worse, we did nothing about it, and pretended it had something to do with the 2^nd Amendment.

Our gun toting mob of tea party, concealed carry, “Second Amendment remedies” backers may not like the comparison, but there is one to be made. Along those lines, here's a more recent example of their conscience free passion.

Take a look at the reaction to a new law requiring background checks, passed by a majority of voters in Washington state:

A "I will not comply" rally in Olympia, Washington, (protested) Initiative 594, which expands background checks on the sales of guns between private owners. This riled up the state's gun-rights-supersede-everything-else crowd, and approximately 1,000 people showed up, mostly men, mostly white, and all of them toting weapons.

The worst thing was … when Gabby Giffords was mentioned by a speech maker, she was booed. Gabby Giffords name was booed. A woman who was shot in the head and almost killed by a gun nut, she was booed on the very anniversary of the massacre of little kids at Newtown, Connecticut. These people have no shame, no compassion…

Yes, 2^nd Amendment backers booed Giffords. We’re so far gone on guns that even this happened in the election to replace Giffords:

On December 17, pro-Second Amendment candidate Martha McSally (R) was officially declared the winner in the race (167 votes) for Arizona’s second congressional district over pro-gun control Representative Ron Barber (D)

One Nation, under Guns.....

The holidays have kept me so busy I never got to write what Voxdotcom just did for me, in the post below. Surprisingly, no one else seems to be talking about the most important reason we're seeing so many innocent people shot dead by law enforcement. It's no coincidence this is happening, now that everyone is a possible gun carrying killer, even kids. Remember, it wasn't always like this.

I have a 12 year old who just happens to be playing around with air soft guns around the house, acting out what he's seen in movies and video games. Not much different that something I did when I was a kid...but with a cap gun. The thing is, he doesn't know better. He might make the wrong decision and go off on his own and repeat what we're seeing all over the country. 

Here's a silent video I edited together of Tamir Rice playing around, that's all, until it all came to an unexpectedly tragic end: 

Voxdotcom: The death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, reveals many things about America. One of them that has not yet received adequate attention is that there is a strong case for a form of gun control that is much stricter than anything that's remotely plausible in the context of American politics. In this case, the drawback is a straightforward consequence of America's approach to firearms. A well-armed citizenry required an even-better-armed constabulary. 

Widespread gun ownership creates a systematic climate of fear on the part of the police. The result is a quantity of police shootings that, regardless of the facts of any particular case, is just staggeringly high. Young black men, in particular, are paying the price for America's gun culture. 

A well-armed population leads to police shootings of the unarmed in two ways. One is that police officers have to be constantly vigilant about the possibility that they are facing a gun-wielding suspect. Cleveland police officers shot and killed a 12 year-old boy recently, because they not-entirely-unreasonably thought his toy gun was a real gun. The other, more relevant to the Michael Brown case, is that when civilians are well-armed, police have to be as well. That turns every encounter into a potentially lethal situation. 

The officer always has to worry that if he doesn't reach for and use his own gun, the suspect will. The basic reason American police departments are so much better-armed than their British counterparts is that Americans civilians are much better armed. There is about one gun per person in the United States, and the police legitimately need to be able to wield more force than the citizens they are policing. 

In America there are lots of guns, so the cops need lots of guns. Consequently, people get shot. Gun ownership is the huge, obvious difference between the United States and countries with drastically lower rates of police killing and nobody is talking about it. That's very unlikely to change any time soon. But it ought to. 

Another Law Abiding Concealed Carry Gun Owner breaks Law...Guilty.

Hey, he felt threatened! Now if we could only get more guns on public buses....

Concealed Carry License Holder drops gun, surprises shoppers.

Cognitive Dissedence posted this warm wonderful Christmas story about another responsible/legal concealed gun owner, who bravely carried his gun into a store...what could go wrong?

WISC: Police said they arrested a Milwaukee man after his loaded handgun fell from his pocket and discharged inside a clothing store in Racine.

Officers said the man and a woman were shopping at Burlington Coat Factory Saturday when the gunshot struck a metal fixture in the store. No one was hurt. Authorities say the man picked up his gun and both left the store.

The man and woman saw surveillance video of the incident posted online and went to the Racine Police Department Sunday. The woman was released. The man was arrested for recklessly endangering safety. Police said the man has a valid concealed carry permit.

Concealed Carry Gun fight Kills both "responsible" owners in Road Rage Incident.

Here's a huge story concealed carry zealots would love to see go away. My conservative friend in Milwaukee commented that it was bound to happen someday. Oh, like it hasn't already happened or is on an unstoppable trajectory? What's next, dueling?

TPM: You already heard about that incident in Michigan in which two men with concealed carry permits and handguns got into a road rage incident and managed to shoot each other to death when the guns came out. Well it turns out there's a bit more to the story.

One of the two men involved in the shoot-out, Robert Taylor, lost his concealed carry license in 2006 after a drunken driving conviction. He was able to get his license back in 2010 after his three year suspension was over. But he was originally charged not only with drunken driving and carried a concealed weapons while intoxicated. That would have earned him a lifetime suspension of his concealed carry license. But prosecutors decided to drop the firearms charge because the gun was, in their estimation, unrelated to Taylor's intoxication.

County Prosecutor Ron Schafer ... said "It was a guy who had too much to drink, but also had a gun in his car," he said. The threat to the community was the drunken driving, not the gun, Schafer said.

As I've mentioned earlier, this story is obviously a tragedy ... But it's also the perfect illustration of the folly of current nationwide gun policy. The idea that more guns lead to less gun violence only makes sense if you believe in a world of rational actors who walk out of a econometrics theorem. People get angry. They get in fights and do stupid things. Add guns to the mix and more people get killed.

Two strange men carry assault rifles to family Farmers market, what could go wrong?

Even my conservative friend in Milwaukee called these two guys knuckleheads for not doing concealed carry advocates any favors.

I've always contended the that small fraction of hobbyist gun owners and potential carriers don't seem to care one bit about public safety and everyone else's freedom to not have strangers with loaded guns around their families. I'm including much of the story here because it's important to understand how useless reasoning is when dealing with these people;

Here's what an AR-15 looks like....

jsonline: Two men heading to Appleton's downtown farmers market with AR-15 rifles slung over their shoulders and handguns in holsters swiftly attracted the attention of police officers last weekend. The men, Charles Branstrom, 27, and Ross Bauman, 22, ultimately were released without tickets or charges.

Branstrom recorded the confrontation with Appleton Police. 

Milwaukee's police chief ridiculed the pair. "In a post Aurora-Newtown environment, it's a reckless and irresponsible stunt to strut around in public with an assault-style weapon and think police should assume you're well-intentioned," Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said Thursday, referring to mass shooting incidents in Colorado and Connecticut. "It's just absurd," Flynn said.

Police were trying to appeal to the practical side of carrying a gun in public, and hoping this was one of those learning moments. It wasn't. According to their recording:

The men are walking down the street when they see a police car's lights go on and they see officers approaching. As the officers order the men to put their hands against the wall, the police ask why they're carrying the guns that way.
"For self-defense," Branstrom says.

"These are real AR-15s guys. I'll cover them both," says one officer, who levels his own weapon at the men as another officer begins questioning them.

Police ask if the men are headed to the farmers market. "Yeah, we were just going to do some shopping," Branstrom says.

"Do you understand how that might create a disturbance if you're walking around with an AR-15 strapped to your back?" asks an officer.

"Yeah, I guess some people don't like guns," Branstrom replies.

One officer offers this parting comment: "I get what you guys are trying to do. ... But when you grow up a little bit and you're a parent and have kids at an event like this and you see someone walk through with guns strapped to their back, your first inclination is going to be, 'All right, what's this guy up to? Is my child going to be safe?'"

Branstrom, an Appleton truck mechanic, said he gets that argument, but said police just "provoked more fear and panic" the way the rolled up on him and Bauman. "I'm still kind of shaken," he said. "I was one nervous twitch away from having a bullet put in me," he said.

Crazy Gun Losers at Wisconsin Carry Inc. manufacture story around buy back program.

Here's a short sample and part of the bigger story you can read here, at Root River Siren:

Critics of gun buy-backs (who can't comprehend the notion of anyone voluntarily surrendering a firearm) say the gun buy-backs only net junk guns, BB guns and air rifles.

These aspersions are cast to dampen community support (i.e. donations) for the event.

To make sure they are correct, members of Wisconsin Carry, Inc. came to Racine last Saturday weighted down with BB guns and broken guns to sell and promptly released a statement saying the guns purchased in the buy-back were worthless.

Gun fanatic who open carries at Family Center says “I was not breaking any laws,” while sending kids and families into hiding, lock down.

Whatever happened to the Constitution’s guarantee to “insure domestic tranquility?”

While rebellious grownups reliving their days of playing soldier try to convince themselves guns are make us safer, that all-important family unit Republicans are trying so hard to protect, are having a more natural reaction; panic!!!

The new gun culture violates the constitutional guarantee of “domestic tranquility.”

FreakOutNation: A man who claims to be on a Second Amendment mission to educate others about gun rights, caused panic in Vancouver, Washington, at a family fun center while carrying a semi-automatic rifle. A business went on lockdown, parents grabbed their children and ran inside, and still he refused to leave while ‘educating’ others by carrying his rifle on private property.

Gun addicts, drunk on the idea that they can now control any situation, don’t get it: Other people see them as strangers with loaded guns. In fact, it's the same kind of stranger gun loons say they are trying to protect themselves from.

This line struck me most from rifle toting Mark Worley:

“If the public is afraid, that’s not my fault. I don't control their point of view”

Amazing. Our natural defensive mechanism is now simply a "point of view?" Tell that to Rep. Paul Ryan, who dismisses the Constitution entirely, by defaulting to our God given freedoms and liberty's. That includes our own natural defensive reaction to what we see as dangerous, right? 

A historical perspective: Gun activism is a recent oddity. Before this movement was spurred on by a conservative activist Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment, people naturally felt unsafe around guns and assault rifles brandished by strangers in public areas. It wasn't normal.

Worley of course is teaching society a lesson. Don't trust your instincts, it's that simple. What a lesson:

Mark Worley said, “I was breaking no law and I was arrested for trespassing on a public sidewalk. Whether or not you agree with open carry of a firearm or not, it’s not illegal.”

But police disagree. Police said he crossed the line when he decided to openly carry his gun on private property, KATU reports.  Police said he first went to a restaurant with a rifle slung over his shoulder which prompted an employee to promptly call 911. When the police arrived Worley had walked to a fireworks stand in Big Al’s parking lot, according to KATU. When employees became concerned over Worley’s intentions, they closed the stand and the business went on lockdown.

Parents panicked and grabbed their children, running into the restaurant while police officers swarmed around Worley, who then refused to leave.