This Is My Rifle

There are many like it, but this one is used to try to intimidate Democrats. Turns out Arizona right wing radio host Ernest Hancock planned out the entire incident with the man carrying the AR-15 rifle at Obama's speech in Phoenix on Monday.

They have a squad - used to be called the confrontation prevention squad, now called community service. We told them that we're going to come down, I'm going to do the radio show live, we're going to be broadcasting it, and I'm going to have a firearm. I had a 9 millimeter on myself...

It was Thursday that I called and talked to Al Ramirez, the representative from the Phoenix police department, and we were discussing - we've been around this rhetoric that was building up around William Kostric, who did this in New Hampshire. We knew this from 15 years ago when Janet Napolitano was a U.S. Assistant Attorney and prosecuted the Viper Militia out of Arizona, and how that was generated into something it wasn't. We talked to Al and we were like, look, we know where this is going and we want to make sure, we come down, we're peaceful, and we demonstrate the right of the people to carry their firearms. And the police protected our right.

They wanted to help - they assigned him [a police officer] to me. He was never more than 4-5 feet away from me. We had law enforcement around us to protect our rights to protect this firearm.

So the whole thing was staged. The Phoenix cops knew, Hancock knew, the whole thing was coordinated to send a loud and clear message to the President.

And not only that, but Hancock is an avid and vocal supporter of the Arizona militia movement as well. Yeah, this is what wingnuts mean by "debate"...bringing rifles to political events in order to make their points.

And of course, it's the kind of "debate" that the GOP is actively encouraging.

So now the Republicans are resorting to bringing firearms to political events in order to influence policy.

There's a word for that, you know. It starts with a T.