'Open Carry' Activists Mainly Gun for Attention

We are ambivalent about drawing more attention to the demonstration staged Monday at Fort Hunt in Fairfax County, Va. The news coverage already has been disproportionate considering the low importance of the event.

Nevertheless, it's instructive about how free speech is a two-way street.

Gun activists and various "patriot" groups organized a "Restore the Constitution" rally near Washington, D.C., at the former Coastal Defense Fortification Building, which is managed by the National Park Service. What made the event special and garnered it excess media attention was the promise that participants would openly carry loaded weapons.

Their attempt to sensationalize and scandalize seems obvious. But a talking point among supporters of the rally was their surprise that the event would attract media attention. The participants simply exercised their rights as citizens, they argued, and there's nothing remarkable about that.

They make a valid point. And nothing confirmed the banal nature of the undertaking more than its meager attendance beyond a small army of television news reporters.

A smallish crowd is what the organizers expected. Their "stated purpose and proposal" when requesting a permit from the National Park Service predicted that "(p)articipants (200) will assemble on National Park Service property to conduct a 'Restore the Constitution' rally/demonstration in support of the open-carrying of firearms.... (P)articipants will be carrying lawful firearms as part of their demonstration, and ... will be asked ... to have any pistols holstered and any long guns empty of any bullets and bullet magazines."

To suggest that the gathering was an ordinary exercise in civic involvement, however, is nonsense.

Many Americans defend gun ownership.

Many own guns. Some seek permits to carry concealed weapons.

Few, though, find any need to be conspicuously armed at political events. If anything, the presence of weapons at places where tempers can run high is more likely to make people nervous.

The "Restore the Constitution" rally and the similar "open carry" events are done to focus public attention at the point of the gun.

The intent is to send a political message, flash the weapons and hint at the implied potential violence to drive home the point.

Why else invite high-profile militia movement activists? Why hold the event at a national park? Why, above all, choose the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing to stage the event?

Those gathered at Fort Hunt with guns holstered on their hips and slung over their shoulders had a right to be there and to try to call attention to themselves.

The chances of a violent outbreak were small — especially in light of the planning and professional approach taken by the National Park Service, which respected the demonstrators while insisting that safety regulations be followed.

Passionate political demonstrations almost always are off-putting to some people. The beauty of our democracy is that while one group has the right to make a scene, others have the equal right to ignore or rebut them.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s peaceful poor people's marches of more than 40 years ago weren't everyone's cup of tea. One wonders what kind of reception the marchers would have received back then had they been brandishing weapons as the Fort Hunt crowd did on Monday.

REPRINTED FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

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