why are people bringing assault rifles to obama health care rallies?

[opebo]

These people are bringing these weapons to threaten their political opponents with murder.

It really is almost unbelievable how low the US has fallen to be allowing this sort of behavior.

[opebo]

What do you think should be done to these people? (not the guy sneaking in with a gun, just the guys standing in approved protest zones)

In an idea world they would be arrested for carrying a gun around in public, the gun would be confiscated, and they'd spend a few months in jail.

[opebo]

Still haven't pointed out what's wrong with my logic. If the purpose of a gun is to kill or seriously injure and we assume that these people aren't bringing guns to these things randomly but for a reason, then it makes sense that they're bringing the gun with violent intentions.

The logic is if they intended to commit violent acts they would have.  The purpose of carrying a gun is for self-defense, a noble cause

Whether that is 'the purpose' or not is entirely unknown to us, and anyway can change instantly at the whim of the gun-weilder, Down.  I think it is absurd to accept that these thugs think someone is going to attack them at a town-hall meeting, but even assuming that is the case (perhaps they're extreme cowards), it is quite possible that they will become enraged due to someone speaking in a liberal fashion and begin spraying bullets into the darker portions of the crowd. 

The point is that 'the purpose' of carrying a gun is not really very relevant to what the gun is actually used for.

[opebo]

Thankfully we don't live in your ideal world.

How can you pretend to be a serious person, deadman, and condone people bringing guns to public political forums?  You are entirely discrediting yourself as a poster here.

Imagine yourself having a political argument, not through the safe medium of the internet as we do here, but toe to toe with a large, sweaty, stinking human male, filled with hatred and hormones, who not only disagrees with you, but thinks that your opinion is a direct attack on his prerogatives and privileges, and that said opinion makes you a criminal and a danger to 'the nation'.  Now, add to that he is brandishing a death-dealing weapon.  Do you really think it is reasonable to just go ahead and attempt to have a political discussion?  Is it really safe to just assume that he has the weapon there just 'for self defense' or some other mysterious purpose?

[opebo]

Usually Presidents (or other persons) get assassinated by people who hide their guns, not those who carry them out in the open.

Just something to think about.

Thank you for contributing an irrelevancy.  

The crazies with the guns are not very likely to manage to assassinate, but they are very likely to kill someone purely on impulse.  The whole danger of having ordinary fools walking around with guns is that ordinary fools get angry.  Ordinary fools, particularly the right-wing american variety, are very excitable and only marginally in touch with reality.  

Yes, we may feel some comfort in knowing that their incompetence means important people will probably escape their murderous wrath, but does that mean we need have no concern whatever for public safety?

[opebo]

It's an attempt to suppress opposition by using intimidation and fear. In other words, it's terrorism.

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Well said!!

[opebo]

If a thousand people bring guns to these things over the next weeks and months and nobody gets shot and nobody dies, will you guys change your minds about anything? 

Why would one change one's mind in that case?  The one-thousand-and--first could still shoot a bunch of people.  The point about guns is they make getting murdered much more likely and feasible.