We are asked by the gun hugger crowd who insist on intruding their firearms everywhere in our public space to believe that they are safe, trustworthy, responsible.
But that does not appear to be the case, which is why Gov. Dayton signed legislation that in Minnesota takes away the guns of domestic abusers, child abusers, and those with protective orders.
Courtesy of the NRA, in most states, gun rights trump the right to be safe from bad guys with guns, against whom a person has an order of protection, including allowing them to carry concealed weapons.
One such person, 32 year old Brandon J. Thompson, demonstrated how much of a scofflaw he is, by threatening speaker of the House John Boehner, second behind Joe Biden to the authority of the position of president of the United States. He admitted to making the threats when arrested by the FBI.
He has had 5 restraining orders against him since 2001.
It makes no sense that someone who has presented a sufficient threat that an order of protection has been issued even once is trusted to safely carry a concealed firearm, much less 5 of them. The existence of 5 Orders of Protection should strongly argue that this is a person who has a problem with issues like anger and intimidation.
So far, a few of the lefty echo chamber hacks are trying to portray Thompson as a lefty/'liberul' for having threatened Boehner (over the issue of cutting off unemployment benefits extensions). Thompson specifically threatened to shoot John Boehner with an assault rifle.
But there is nothing that I can identify about Thompson that indicates either that he was politically active, much less that he was liberal. Boehner has routinely upset and even antagonized many on the right, including over this issue, and given the predominance of conservatives in the part of Indiana where Thompson lives, it is more likely that to the extent he has any political orientation, he is conservative, given the racial makeup of the area, and that it has been strongly republican dating back to at least 1983.
As noted from USA Today's coverage:
“Free speech is the cornerstone of our democracy but threats of violence have no place in our civil society,” said Joseph H. Hogsett, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, in a statement announcing the arrest. “People who are inclined to make them need to know that they violate the law and they will be aggressively pursued.”
I have a better idea; let's not have those who habitually threaten violence be allowed to be armed in the 1st place. Those who threaten people should never be allowed to possess a firearm of any kind, permanently, period. Threatening people should be an automatic disqualification for having a firearm --- which would distinctly thin out the number of people who currently both possess one or more firearms, and who too-frequently threaten others, including for disagreeing with them - as we saw during the same period with the threats made by gun-huggers towards a gun store owner for wanting to offer 'smart' guns for sale.
It's time for a new rule, nationwide one threat of violence or intimidation with a firearm -- no more firearm, EVER, much less a cc permit.