I'm just wondering what the point is for carrying an assult rifle around like that. Other than to try and make a statement. What need is there to carry around a gun like that?

I'm just wondering what the point is for carrying an assult rifle around like that. Other than to try and make a statement. What need is there to carry around a gun like that?

No one is going to openly carry a weapon up to range and shoot the president. It would be a simple act of sucicide.

A mentally disturbed person would, and one that preferred you to kill them, but meanwhile they will take some folks with him. It might be rare, but I prefer to keep my family away from groups small or large that want to prove a point in a crowd.

This is crazy. They are allowing people to have assault weapons and guns and be near a President.

Man carrying assault weapon attends Obama protest.

By AMANDA LEE MYERS and TERRY TANG, Associated Press Writers Amanda Lee Myers And Terry Tang, Associated Press Writers – Mon Aug 17, 6:22 pm ET

PHOENIX – About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside the convention center where President Barack Obama was giving a speech Monday — the latest incident in which protesters have openly displayed firearms near the president.

Gun-rights advocates say they're exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest, while those who argue for more gun control say it could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday's event, including the man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, didn't need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.

The man with the rifle declined to be identified but told The Arizona Republic that he was carrying the assault weapon because he could. "In Arizona, I still have some freedoms," he said.

Phoenix police Detective J. Oliver, who monitored the man at the downtown protest, said police also wanted to make sure no one decided to harm him.

"Just by his presence and people seeing the rifle and people knowing the president was in town, it sparked a lot of emotions," Oliver said. "We were keeping peace on both ends."

Last week, during Obama's health care town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a sign reading "It is time to water the tree of liberty" stood outside with a pistol strapped to his leg.

"It's a political statement," he told The Boston Globe. "If you don't use your rights, then you lose your rights."

Police asked the man to move away from school property, but he was not arrested.

Fred Solop, a Northern Arizona University political scientist, said the incidents in New Hampshire and Arizona could signal the beginning of a disturbing trend.

"When you start to bring guns to political rallies, it does layer on another level of concern and significance," Solop said. "It actually becomes quite scary for many people. It creates a chilling effect in the ability of our society to carry on honest communication."

He said he's never heard of someone bringing an assault weapon near a presidential event. "The larger the gun, the more menacing the situation," he said.

Phoenix was Obama's last stop on a four-day tour of western states, including Montana and Colorado.

Authorities in Montana said they received no reports of anyone carrying firearms during Obama's health care town hall near Bozeman on Friday. About 1,000 people both for and against Obama converged at a protest area near the Gallatin Field Airport hangar where the event took place. One person accused of disorderly conduct was detained and released, according to the Gallatin Airport Authority.

Heather Benjamin of Denver's Mesa County sheriff's department, the lead agency during Obama's visit there, said no one was arrested.

Arizona is an "open-carry" state, which means anyone legally allowed to have a firearm can carry it in public as long as it's visible. Only someone carrying a concealed weapon is required to have a permit.

Paul Helmke, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said people should not be allowed to bring guns to events where Obama is.

"To me, this is craziness," he said. "When you bring a loaded gun, particularly a loaded assault rifle, to any political event, but particularly to one where the president is appearing, you're just making the situation dangerous for everyone."

He said people who bring guns to presidential events are distracting the Secret Service and law enforcement from protecting the president. "The more guns we see at more events like this, there's more potential for something tragic happening," he said.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said armed demonstrators in open-carry states such as Arizona and New Hampshire have little impact on security plans for the president.

"In both cases, the subject was not entering our site or otherwise attempting to," Donovan said. "They were in a designated public viewing area. The main thing to know is that they would not have been allowed inside with a weapon."

Representatives of the National Rifle Association did not return calls for comment.

What is so wrong with it?
Guns aren't bad, it is the people behind the guns we have to worry about.
Maybe Obama is looking to add them to his own private army when he takes the US under communistic rule.

You would have to ask the person carrying the weapon what his (or her) special motivations were. I suspect they would vary from a simple "act of freedom" i.e., doing it simply because they have the right to do it, to more complex reasons having to do with trying to show maximum displeasure at anything from healthcare reform to further restrictions on the use and carry of firearms. Some of it is probably simple group mentality where someone says "Hey let's all carry guns to the Obama rally!" and the group says "Yeah, that would be great".

If your question is outside the political area as to why citizens should be carrying weapons around, the reasons are many, going to the gun shop, showing the gun to someone for whatever reason, moving the gun to someplace where you need it or might need it... or the simple fact that you feel you want to carry the gun to be armed in case someone wants to harm you. The number of criminals and drug smugglers in Arizona is rather high.

Well, yes. Obviously only the person carrying the gun would know the exact reason they're doing so. I just wonder what the need to carry an assault rifle around would be.

Let's clear something up real quick.. The man had an AR15. The AR15 is NOT an "assault rifle", not in any sense of the term. It's a semi-automatic, magazine fed, small caliber rifle. It is the model that the military's M16/M4 is based on but the similarilty ends with the AR's safety switch. It is not capable of automatic fire, a key defining characteristic of an "assault rifle".

Second, why the need to identify anyone with a gun as some kind of nut job? are you afraid of people practicing their freedoms?

The proof that the man isn't a nutjob is the fact that NOTHING happened with him.. He didn't take a pot shot at the president, he didn't threaten anyone with it, he didn't try to enter the main "federal area" that follows the president and SS. It was a non-event to all but the anti-Bill of Rights liberal fascists..

People made the arguement back in the 90's before Texas adopted concealed carry. they argued that people would get in daily shoot-outs over traffic disputes and so on.. The fact is that the crime rate in Tx has precipitously fallen since the adoption of concealed carry..

people need to get over this crippling fear of firearms.. the gun itself did not and does not cause any violence, no more than a pen causes spelling errors. the man at the protest yesterday proved that.

Winx, as already pointed out the key issue here is "Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said armed demonstrators in open-carry states such as Arizona and New Hampshire have little impact on security plans for the president."

Carrying a weapon openly is far less dangerous to the public and the president than the secret service worrying about who "has one". The security plans for the president include "ranging" which is the study of the effective range of a potential weapon and the time it takes to get on target. One of the key areas of training and criteria for hiring of secret service agents is the ability to gun down the typical attacker before he can reasonable acquire a target and fire. In the case of a AR15 carrying person in the public viewing area, he would be dead before the rifle ever pointed directly at the president because armed men (more than one) would be watching him all the time.

There are a lot of other factors too including "profiling". The chances of a man, among a group of men, all carrying weapons legally as an act of "whatever", being a real threat in this type of situation is very small. No one is going to openly carry a weapon up to range and shoot the president. It would be a simple act of sucicide.

What is so wrong with it?
Guns aren't bad, it is the people behind the guns we have to worry about.
Maybe Obama is looking to add them to his own private army when he takes the US under communistic rule.

We can't say that no one is going to shoot the President. Four of them have already been shot and killed.

Police asked the man to move away from school property, but he was not arrested.

I wasn't saying that no one will shoot a president. I was saying the odds of the guy carrying the "assault rifle" of shooting the president were close to zero. The way to shoot a president in modern times is to conceal a small pistol and get close.

If there were a bunch of guys with guns in a crowd within range of Obama. The secret service would be looking for the one carrying the Remington 700 with the attached Leupold 10x scope with a distorted arm sling showing repeated use.

The man carrying the AR15 would be dismissed as a clown but watched carefully. The media doesn't know the difference in the actual capability of the guns but places great emphasis on the 'assault rifle' because it makes sensational press and scares the public. It scared you.

You are not entirely correct. The term "assault rifle" seems to change meaning on a regular basis. One common definition of an assault rifle is a rifle which will hold more than 7 or 8 rounds in the clip, another definition is a rifle that uses a clip. One definition is guns that are "scary looking". You seem to be using the Wikipedia definition.

The requirement for the gun to be fully automatic is not absolute either as many claim the MI Garand to be the first real assault weapon and was only semi automatic.

I took my AR15 to Alaska for target practice and bear defense (it is highly recommended that you have a gun in the wilds of Alaska) but the Canadian customs would not let me enter the country with an assault weapon.

I know! Can you imagine what would happen if we were by a school with a gun?

This is crazy. They are allowing people to have assault weapons and guns and be near a President.

Man carrying assault weapon attends Obama protest.

By AMANDA LEE MYERS and TERRY TANG, Associated Press Writers Amanda Lee Myers And Terry Tang, Associated Press Writers – Mon Aug 17, 6:22 pm ET

PHOENIX – About a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside the convention center where President Barack Obama was giving a speech Monday — the latest incident in which protesters have openly displayed firearms near the president.

Gun-rights advocates say they're exercising their constitutional right to bear arms and protest, while those who argue for more gun control say it could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Phoenix police said the gun-toters at Monday's event, including the man carrying an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, didn't need permits. No crimes were committed, and no one was arrested.

The man with the rifle declined to be identified but told The Arizona Republic that he was carrying the assault weapon because he could. "In Arizona, I still have some freedoms," he said.

Phoenix police Detective J. Oliver, who monitored the man at the downtown protest, said police also wanted to make sure no one decided to harm him.

"Just by his presence and people seeing the rifle and people knowing the president was in town, it sparked a lot of emotions," Oliver said. "We were keeping peace on both ends."

Last week, during Obama's health care town hall in Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a sign reading "It is time to water the tree of liberty" stood outside with a pistol strapped to his leg.

"It's a political statement," he told The Boston Globe. "If you don't use your rights, then you lose your rights."

Police asked the man to move away from school property, but he was not arrested.

Fred Solop, a Northern Arizona University political scientist, said the incidents in New Hampshire and Arizona could signal the beginning of a disturbing trend.

"When you start to bring guns to political rallies, it does layer on another level of concern and significance," Solop said. "It actually becomes quite scary for many people. It creates a chilling effect in the ability of our society to carry on honest communication."

He said he's never heard of someone bringing an assault weapon near a presidential event. "The larger the gun, the more menacing the situation," he said.

Phoenix was Obama's last stop on a four-day tour of western states, including Montana and Colorado.

Authorities in Montana said they received no reports of anyone carrying firearms during Obama's health care town hall near Bozeman on Friday. About 1,000 people both for and against Obama converged at a protest area near the Gallatin Field Airport hangar where the event took place. One person accused of disorderly conduct was detained and released, according to the Gallatin Airport Authority.

Heather Benjamin of Denver's Mesa County sheriff's department, the lead agency during Obama's visit there, said no one was arrested.

Arizona is an "open-carry" state, which means anyone legally allowed to have a firearm can carry it in public as long as it's visible. Only someone carrying a concealed weapon is required to have a permit.

Paul Helmke, president of the Washington, D.C.-based Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said people should not be allowed to bring guns to events where Obama is.

"To me, this is craziness," he said. "When you bring a loaded gun, particularly a loaded assault rifle, to any political event, but particularly to one where the president is appearing, you're just making the situation dangerous for everyone."

He said people who bring guns to presidential events are distracting the Secret Service and law enforcement from protecting the president. "The more guns we see at more events like this, there's more potential for something tragic happening," he said.

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said armed demonstrators in open-carry states such as Arizona and New Hampshire have little impact on security plans for the president.

"In both cases, the subject was not entering our site or otherwise attempting to," Donovan said. "They were in a designated public viewing area. The main thing to know is that they would not have been allowed inside with a weapon."

Representatives of the National Rifle Association did not return calls for comment.