Georgia on my mind

By Capt. Fogg

Florida, the state I live in, does not allow "open carry" of firearms. To get a permit to carry concealed weapons, one has to attend a safety class, have a clean police record, clearance from the county sheriff or police chief, and submit a set of fingerprints. Like Mack the Knife, the weapon must be kept out of sight and may not be used to intimidate or threaten anyone. You can't, if armed, sit at a bar or other "place of public nuisance," and you may not bring it onto private property or into a court house or police station without permission.

Apparently, it's different in Georgia. Although it's hard to get a clear explanation of the state code, it seems you, as a permit holder, can walk around with an AK over the shoulder and a pair of .50 caliber Desert Eagle automatics in your belt -- and more if you can carry it all. You can dress in camo, festoon yourself with weapons and ammo belts like Pancho Villa, and attend a political rally or event or demonstration -- and according to Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA), you definitely should! It's been happening of late -- people showing up at public meetings where "Kill Obama" signs and signs comparing him with Hitler are displayed. Never mind the obvious danger to the country and to any president who tends to make delusional, stupid, and ignorant people very angry.

They have the right to do that,

Gingery told Chris Matthews yesterday. An interesting assertion in a state that has had so much to say about who you could marry, what you could do after you did, where you could buy a house, and what kind of provocation legitimized a lynching.

Of course, if you had tried that during the recent Republican era, you'd most likely have been bussed outside of town to a "free speech" area, if you somehow avoided any altercations with the police and secret service. But that was then, this is high noon in Dodge City. What better way for a determined terrorist than to come unarmed into a public arena, grab Bubba's old Colt Gummint model, and blaze away at the president, governor, senator, etc.? What better way to show them city boys just what we think about the way they do things up North?

Whether Gingery thinks the way to preserve one's rights is to abuse them in the most extreme way possible or whether he secretly hopes to intimidate the opposing party into submission -- whether he'd just love to see Joe Biden in the Oval Office this year -- it's impossible to tell. Perhaps he's only hoping that being surrounded by a hostile ad hoc militia will force Democrats to listen to their ravings about death panels, re-education camps, rationing of medical care, free medical care to illegal aliens, galloping Marxism, slippery slopes, the president's citizenship, and the loss of precious bodily fluids, but really -- don't we already have Fox News and Rush Limbaugh for that?

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)