by Chris Bodenner
Megan has a sensible final word on gun-toting protesters:
[L]ots of things make it harder for the Secret Service to do their job. Protesting is much harder on the Secret Service--almost certainly harder than one guy openly carrying a gun, because the protesters are a crowd of people who have to be watched constantly for suspicious movements. [...] People who are planning to commit violence are probably going to try to conceal it until the last moment. And the other people aren't going to pick fights with the guy with the gun.
Unless the other people have guns, too. I'm just waiting for the media circus when a small militia shows up to the next rally. Or, conversely, when a liberal protester of Arab descent shows up with a turban and AK-47, just to make Republicans squirm. Anyway, Wilkinson also offers some productive push-back on Zengerle:
The silliest thing is Zengerle’s casual assumption that if the free and peaceful exercise of an enumerated constitutional right “takes up resources,” then the state may therefore limit it. I doubt he’d like to generalize this principle. Of course, the real issue is likely that Zengerle is not impressed with the idea of an individual right to bear arms. So he’s untroubled by limiting it on the grounds that it might cost a little money or slightly affect the probability of harm to the president.
I lean towards the libertarians on this one.