At least 200 guns brought their owners to Coeur d’Alene City Park Saturday evening. They gathered to protest against bigotry, discrimination and dispel inflammatory rhetoric about them being espoused by President Barack Obama and Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. They expressed their offense about being misrepresented and demanded acknowledgement of their true place in the fabric of American history in addition to equal rights and protection under American law.
To most folks those statements would sound patently ridiculous. “Guns can’t do anything by themselves like protest, and they’re not people so they can’t be discriminated against!” And both those assertions are true. But if we accept the misinformation and hateful speeches from the President and former First Lady – that “it’s all about the guns” – then the paragraph is entirely plausible.
Citizens from all over Northern Idaho gathered Saturday evening at the Rally for Constitutional Carry, not “the evil guns”, though just about every one there did have at least one. They listened to inspiring words from a young local resident, 9- year-old actor, Ryan Durbin of Priest River, and from local statesmen, State Representatives Heather Scott (ID 1A), Matt Shea (WA 4), and Dan McDonald of the “3% of Idaho” constitutionalist group (speaking on behalf of Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler), as well as Greg Pruett for the Idaho Second Amendment Alliance (ISAA) the organizer of the event.
But the protest WAS against discrimination and for equal rights regarding the carrying of those guns. For the Idaho Constitution guarantees the right of all law abiding Citizens to the open carry of firearms, one does NOT need a “license”, ie “permission from the government” to do so. It is only when the gun is not in sight, ”concealed carry”, that one has to have “the blessing of the king” so to speak. I can walk down any street in Idaho today, with a holstered pistol on my hip and that is considered perfectly legal. But let it get a little bit cold or start raining and I need to put on a coat? Bam! I am now a criminal, unless I have a little plasticized card on my person that says I filled out paperwork, went to a training class, paid fees, was fingerprinted, and photographed, went through and passed an FBI background check, as well as having to lose time off of work – because the Kootenai County Sheriff’s Office only process these license applications on certain days at certain times. All that just yo put on my coat?!? It’s easier to get a license to drive a multi-ton vehicle, which kill more people per year than legally owned guns, and is not a constitutionally guaranteed right, than it is to get what should be an unnecessary license to cover my handgun. The same applies to my wife if she doesn’t want to wear a belt outside her dress for a holster, or just wants to put it in her purse. This is patently discriminatory and violates the equal protection clause. In addition to this, any elected official in Idaho doesn’t need a Concealed Weapon License simply by virtue of being elected. This creates separate classes of citizens.
Are you or I somehow “inferior” to a “public servant”, who is supposed to be working FOR us, just because they managed to have lot of people vote for them? “But the police need to know who’s carrying!” This allegation was debunked during Sheriff Wheeler’s message, in which it was stated that police officers are taught that ALL persons they encounter may be armed. So whether or not I may be open carrying, I should be treated the same as though I were wearing a vest or coast, wearing a shoulder bag or wearing a waist pack.
Our President and others, like Mrs. Clinton, feel that it is a disgrace & despicable that we are “allowed” having guns at all. They would rather us be like Australia or England, where guns have been banned and confiscated. They are the “extremists”, not the Citizens who believe the Constitutions of our Country & State “say what they mean and mean what they say”. So this is why over 200 of our neighbors “pushed back” last night and asserted the Natural Rights given to us by our Creator against the shrill & hysterical demagogues. Those people who pontificate for the restriction of God givem American rights, while at the same time urging the arming of sectarian followers of Allah. We demand, not ask, our rights as guaranteed by the Constitution that they take an Oath to uphold. And if they think that we are just going to sit down, shut up and take whatever they decide to permit us to have, then I have just one statement for those “Powers that Be”
– WE WILL NOT COMPLY!
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