If you were planning to take part in a peaceful political rally in Phoenix on a hot day in late May, what sort of things might you want to take with you? Water immediately comes to mind. I know I’d want to carry along a good supply of bottled water, and if I could figure out how to carry and preserve a little ice, I’d want to do that too.
I’d probably want a ball cap to keep the sun and perspiration out of my eyes, and I’d double check to be sure that my cell phone was charged up. There might be a few other things you can think of that would be handy, but there are a few things that just wouldn’t come to the mind of someone intending peaceful protest—things like 9mm and .45 caliber handguns and 12-gauge shotguns.
Last Saturday tens of thousands of people opposed to Arizona SB1070, the state’s newly passed legislative affront to the Fourth Amendment, marched five miles through the streets of Phoenix. They carried signs, banners, water bottles, canteens, horns, guitars, flags and popsicles. They sang, they chanted, they shouted and waved their banners and signs.
A short distance from the assembly point from which the march proceeded a separate and distinct set of protesters gathered to stage a counter-protest. They came to show support for SB1070. In this crowd were few signs and fewer banners. Some had water bottles. Others had ice chests and beer. Most had guns—9mm and .45 caliber handguns and 12-gauge shotguns. They were there for an altogether different sort of protest. (see video at right)
No shots were fired, and no one was killed. There were no lynchings, and no brown skinned people were tied and dragged through town by rednecks in pickups, but the possibility of such a spectacle unmistakably titillated the imaginations of many whose intellectual gifts appeared inversely proportional to the size of their guns. The police were out in force, and order was maintained.
If you’ve been keeping up with current events on television or on the internet you’ve undoubtedly heard the anti-immigrant mouthpieces and Tea Party people repeating how this controversy isn’t about race, isn’t about hate, and is all about patriotism. Pointing a gun at the heart of democracy and threatening to pull the trigger is not a patriotic act. It is not the act of people of goodwill and there is nothing “American” about it.
So, what does all of this prove? Does it help us decide who’s right and who’s wrong in this immigration debate? Yeah, maybe it does.
