It's Always About Power

What better way to signal you don't agree with a meeting of gun control activists in Dallas than gathering outside the meeting point, ready to ambush them with your open-carry firearms in order to terrorize the entire group?

On Saturday, nearly 40 armed men, women, and children waited outside a Dallas, Texas area restaurant to protest a membership meeting for the state chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a gun safety advocacy group formed in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

According to a spokeswoman for Moms Demand Action (MDA), the moms were inside the Blue Mesa Grill when members of Open Carry Texas (OCT) — an open carry advocacy group — “pull[ed] up in the parking lot and start[ed] getting guns out of their trunks.” The group then waited in the parking lot for the four MDA members to come out. The spokeswoman said that the restaurant manager did not want to call 911, for fear of “inciting a riot” and waited for the gun advocates to leave. The group moved to a nearby Hooters after approximately two hours.

MDA later released a statement calling OCT “gun bullies” who “disagree[d] with our goal of changing America’s gun laws and policies to protect our children and families.” The statement added that the members and restaurant customers were “terrified by what appeared to be an armed ambush.” A member of OCT responded by tweeting, “I guess I’m a #gunbullies #Comeandtakeit.”

This is not the first time that gun advocates have rallied at MDA events. In March, a group of armed men crashed a MDA gun-control rally in Indianapolis. Other gun advocate groups will hold rallies this upcoming December 14th, the anniversary date of the Sandy Hook shooting. 

This is all about power, like most bullying stories.  The message from OCT is simple: if you dare to hold a public meeting about gun control in the state, you're going to be harassed by a platoon of armed "concerned citizens".  That's not a recipe for disaster or anything, right?




I wonder what the reaction of police would have been if all these "responsible gun owners" had been, you know, black or Latino.  Probably "Obama's Thug Army!11!!" all over Breitbart and Drudge, how there were now "roving gangs of Obama New Black Panther thugs" terrorizing the good white people of Texas, and Obama's DHS is clearly arming black people for a national uprising against Whitey.

40 white guys with guns in a parking lot?  Open carry protest because FREEDOM and who needs the government anyway?  40 black guys with guns in a parking lot?  They'd all have been killed and the government couldn't have gotten there fast enough to take care of the situation, and by "take care of" I mean shoot all the obvious dark-skinned terrorists.

So yes, this was domestic terrorism.  This was the response to say "Our second amendment right to bear arms beat your first amendment freedom of peaceful assembly rights because we have the guns, so screw you."  Also, the fact that we had multiple men with guns versus four unarmed women in a restaurant shouldn't be lost on anyone.

It's always about power with bullies.

[UPDATE]  As the Rumproast crew reminds us, Texas is NOT an open carry state for handguns, so some of these assholes were openly breaking the law on top of everything else.  So yes, everything in the above three paragraphs goes triple in that case.