[Ed: The following article is republished from thegunwire.com with the author’s permission]

This is all the Grand Canyon State needs – more bad press – when things are going well for freedom-loving Arizonans. Here’s the story at eurweb.com: “The bullet riddled tee shirt of President Obama posted brazenly on Facebook by seven semi-automatic gun toting men among them a Peoria, Arizona police sergeant was much more than the by now standard non-stop litany of racist cartoons, depictions, web postings, and kooky loose talk threats against President Obama.”

Posting this on Facebook is pure stupidity. Posing for the pic wasn’t very bright (raising the eyebrow of Secret Service agents in Arizona, for openers), and the entire episode is in bad taste. Using the shirt for a target – well, I couldn’t care less. It could be a picture of anyone and I’d look at it the same. What if it were a picture of Sean Penn? Or George Bush? If it was George Bush, would the eurweb.com article even have been written?

It’s in bad taste to shoot at any target depicting any real, live human being, except obvious enemies like OBL or Saddam Hussein (when they were alive) or commercial targets with real people playing the role of the threat. Even then, is it really necessary?  I mean, we’ve got plenty of cool zombie targets. And think about it:  Obama/Zombie…Zombie/Obama… not much difference. Only one as a target is much less inflammatory and doesn’t flag you for law enforcement scrutiny.

The gun toting men and the police sergeant were taking target practice on the president’s likeness at an undisclosed desert locale.  The gun toting men made a virtual public call for the gunning down of the president comes on Facebook.

That’s reading a little too much into it. They shot up a shirt. It’s a big leap to call that a “public call for the gunning down of the president.”

Again, if it were a picture of Sean Penn, would it be considered a “public call for the gunning down of a celebrity?” Doubt it. If it were George Bush? Hell, if it were Bush, I’m sure the left would give these guys merit badges. They would be invited to fancy dinners and given a big pat on the back.

There is nothing shadowy or conspiratorial about what police sergeant Pat Shearer and his gun packing friends in Peoria, Arizona did. It was brazen and very open. The clueless Shearer for his part saw nothing inappropriate, let alone, dangerous, about what he did. He chalked it up to much ado about nothing or as he put it he didn’t think that shooting up a t-shirt with President Obama’s face on it “was that big a deal.” It was more than a big deal. The target in their in gun sights, not a regular bull eye, a likeness of Howdy Dowdy, or a Cactus plant. It was President Obama. Federal prosecutors should see it as the “big deal” that it is and bring charges.

It would seem to me the LEO should have known better than to participate in such an affair, and looking at this situation, I can completely understand the outrage towards the LEO – but not the civilians. I can’t say what the outcome should be for the LEO – that’s not my call…but common sense would dictate he shouldn’t have been involved. For the other shooters, it should be a learning experience – nothing more.

Really, do any of these guys have any common sense?  Or class?

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

94 COMMENTS

  1. That’s a visit from the Secret Service at the least

    Stupid people

    BTW – Has anyone seen the guy on youtube shooting Sarah Palin targets?

  3. Seeming to threaten any political figure is a stupid idea, most of all a sitting president. The Secret Service tends not to have a sense of humor about these kinds of things.

  4. Free expression, it is a bitch.

    If guys want to shoot up a picture of POTUS, it’s their right. If it’s tasteless, too bad. Free speech is messy. Someone doesn’t like it? That’s their problem. Think it’s incendiary? Political speech is supposed to be incendiary. One of the people was a LEO? So what. He didn’t give up all his rights when he joined the force. Bad press? That’s redundant. They put it up on Facebook? Guess what — it’s not free speech if they have to hide it.

    Lesson learned? Yes. People are pissed. They have good reasons. And they have the right to demonstrate their anger by all legal means.

    • Right you are.

      Just remember, many people only respect free speech when it works for them. Use free speech to attack The One and the sheep will bleat same as if any other object of fanatical worship was attacked.

    • I’m with you Ralph, but these boys are going to be bumming when the SS gets to them. Nothing is free and these guys are going to learn that the hard way.

      • Nah. The SS probably will do their research and, unless they were in a local “militia,” decide that these guys were just blowing off steam. If the SS tries to talk to them, their lawyer will tell the guys with the earbuds to f^ck off, and that will be the end of that.

    • Something can be within your rights and a bad idea at the same time. There’s no contradiction between the two.

      Not entirely in topic, but you’re well within your rights to tell the cops your life story after a DGU, but that doesn’t make it smart.

      In this case, actual charges would be an overreaction but this guy is probably going to be under scrutiny by the Secret Service for quite a while.

    • But, Ralph, this was done with GUNS!! Evil-evil GUNS!! That makes the pale hearts go all pitter-pattery! /sarcasm

      I find myself very annoyed when people conflate benign activities with actual threats. It makes otherwise reasonable people look moronic. I find this no more devastatingly dangerous or threatening than somebody throwing darts at their bosses photo on the wall. Does LE investigate that nonsense? No need to stick an officious nose in here either.

      And, more importantly, you’ve already covered the very real significance of the political speech aspect.

      JSG

      PS: I went back and looked more closely at the photo. They weren’t even shooting at a photo of the POTUS on a t-shirt they were shooting at the reproduction of a painting of the then candidate for POTUS on a t-shirt!! This is an image borne out of the cult of personality surrounding one citizen and stretching this photo to a true threat of violence is…well…stretching.

    • Rahm Emmanuel, in a well-publicized episode, did worse at a popular steak-house when, post-election 2008, he called out the names of the new enemies, those who did not support the President during the election (some Hillary pals among them), and after each name stabbed the table with a steak knife and screamed “dead!” Didn’t see him having a problem with the Secret Service. Heck, he’s mayor of Chicago now. The SS itself researches things. If the guys are not part of something larger, they won’t get much attention. The problem comes when one of these guys has a few loose ends or skeletons. Their act is clearly protected speech. However, investigating questionable intentions discretely isn’t an abrogation of their rights. I assume they all are just normal guys legitimately venting. If not, hey, that’s their problem. I INTENSELY dislike it when people mix guns with political expression gratuitously. Better to stick to steak knives. There is no anti-steak-knife coalition.

    • Well said, Ralph. These guys probably lack your ability to make a cogent argument against the President’s policies, so they resorted to other means. Since they’re out in the open, they clearly pose not actual threat to the most heavily protected person in the world. It would be different if the, say, shot up a picture of a local liberal activist and slipped under her door – that’s a threat.

      I find the right wing hysteria regarding Obama ridiculous and a distraction from the real assault on liberty that will continue regardless of who occupies the oval office, but these morons have the right to express themselves.

    • I agree with Ralph, this is freedom of expression. Remember people burning political effigies during the Vietnam era?

      • Vietnam? No need to go that far back – check these out:

        http://www.binscorner.com/pages/d/death-threats-against-bush-at-protests-i.html

        Don’t forget the Sarah Palin effigy; Sarah Palin effigy deemed A-OK by the Secret Service and declared to be free speech by LA County sheriff:

        http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/29/local/me-palineffigy29

        “Offensive as it may be, the Palin doll — outfitted with beehive wig, glasses and a vintage Neiman Marcus red coat dress — appears to violate no law, said officials of the Secret Service, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Los Angeles city Code Enforcement Division.

        “The sheriff made this clear: This is a country that has freedom of speech, and we protect that right even when we think it’s idiotic and stupid and in bad taste,” said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department.”

        • If the Secret Service determines there was no real intent in this case (as is most likely the case) there will be no charges either.

          If you don’t want Secret Service scrutiny, don’t shoot up an image of the President and post it on Facebook. They’re not just going to shrug that off.

      • Remember people burning political effigies during the Vietnam era?

        Buring effigies? I remember them burning draft boards. As an aside, a few years ago I was working on a deal, and the lawyer on the other side had been convicted of a felony for breaking into a local draft board and destroying their records. He was sentenced to a year and a day, a few years later he had his rights restored, and he’s been practicing law for a few decades.

        They say that history is written by the victors. More than that, the future is determined by the victors. So, we’d better win.

        • I went to law school with a convicted murderer. My local cops make jokes about “criminals who are attorneys.” And why not? But own a gun after a misdemeanor with a 2 year maximum sentence put in place by the legislature mainly to keep drinkers on probation? Noooo. “If the law says that, the law is an ass.”

    • Ralph, I’m with you on free speech. However, there is a law that says it is a crime to threaten the POTUS. What they did could be taken as threatening. Debate the 1st amendment legality of the law all you want, but it is the law.

  5. People may have the legal right (or not these days) to shoot up the shirt. Yet, is simply a dumb ass move that feeds the propaganda machine of the anti-gun progressive screaming crowd.

  6. I believe these guys have the right to shoot up any shirt they want. Unless they were flat out saying “We’re shooting up this shirt and we’re going for the President next”, I don’t see a problem with this.

    • well this is why the secret service investigates these things to establish intent. and not local PD, btw these guys did no favors to themselves by putting this out in the public eye. The secret service is not partisan. Herman Cain had a SS detail while he was still in the running.

  7. Well, Obama can just declare them all to be terrorists and have an Air Force drone take them out with extreme prejudice. It’s all perfectly legal, ya know!

  8. “It’s in bad taste to shoot at any target depicting any real, live human being, except obvious enemies…”

    Who’s to say what constitutes an obvious enemy? To many people, Obama is an enemy.

    I bring this up simply as a talking point as to who gets to determine what’s tasteless or appropriate or not, not a reflection of my own belief about it. It just irks me when someone assumes an “obvious” opinion applies to everyone, as most antis do.

  9. Here’s my issue. They are fueling the anti-gun fire. If you were in charge of the US, and your likeness was being fired upon, wouldn’t that make you a little upset?

    This has a Michael Moore documentary written all over it. It’s poor taste, plain and simple, and it literally gives ammunition to the left against gun ownership. If you tried this on any of the public ranges where I’m from, you’d get chewed out and kicked out. They would probably also revoke your membership. It’s not because range owners are liberals, clearly, but they don’t want to be shut down by allowing idiots with guns on their property.

    Along the same vein, your First Amendment rights do not allow you to yell “Fire!” in a movie theatre.

    I understand (to an extent) the frustration in Arizona that they have been screwed by the federal government (I live in California). This behavior quickly becomes “our problem” when the media left advertises it against lawful gun ownership, and it is used to further restrictions on lawful gun use, ammunition purchases, background checks, etc.

    • Along the same vein, your First Amendment rights do not allow you to yell “Fire!” in a movie theatre.

      Sure it does, if there’s a fire.

    • I understand the initial concern with how political opposition will cast someone’s activities, but in the end you do not protect your rights by voluntarily curtailing them so as not to offend those who oppose those rights. And this is covered under free speech. If you’re in charge of anything and you get upset because someone is tearing you down, you may be too thin-skinned to be in charge. There is a difference between this and a real threat.

      In so far as you’re not allowed to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater (you should yell if there is an actual fire) it is about ensuring you do not abuse your right to free speech to create or communicate a real threat to others. You’re not allowed to voice a real threat against the POTUS, either. But representational and demonstrative speech does not equate with a real threat and should not be treated as such.

      If we retreat from activities because the opposition will cast them in a negative light in order to drum up support for their restrictions and bans we enact our own de facto ban. We should not be self-censoring, we should be pointing out how benign this activity is, poking holes in all the overinflated rhetoric, not providing more hot air to keep them up.

      JSG

      • I guess my right to shoot a POTUS target and post it on Facebook is infringed.

        This is a brave new world we live in, folks. Defense attorneys and District attorneys show Facebook photos to juries. Think that will help your cause after a DGU?

        Do you think this incident will help the cause of gun owners? I don’t. Neither does the author.

        See you at Starbucks.

        • I recognize that defense attorneys, DAs and even employers are using social media to establish any number of things. I think we’re in the middle of a transitional period where everyone figures out how to treat the broad spectrum of information social media presents. I don’t think hiding activities from public view is the answer in the long run, though it may seem prudent in the short run. The solution, as with all things people fear and wish to censor because they don’t understand, is to educate.

          Unless the DGU involves the POTUS, I don’t see how it’s relevant. It’s our job now, and the attorney’s job later, to establish in the public’s mind that it isn’t relevant. We don’t accomplish that by decrying innocuous activities that the uninformed might misunderstand.

          Do I think this incident helps the cause of gun owners? No. But I don’t think everything done with a gun should be required to help the cause. Do I think it necessarily hurts the cause? No, it doesn’t have to. But only if we do our job by pointing it out for what it is, and downplaying the opposition’s hype.

          Starbucks it is. Lubricate the discussion with a little coffee.

          JSG

  10. How is this different from hanging someone in effigy? That is an American tradition.

    Shame on those here that would sacrifice their first amendment rights for the illusion of protecting their second amendment rights.

    • If you publicly hung an effigy of Obama and posted it on Facebook, that would probably put you on the Secret Service’s radar as well.Again, within your rights, but unless you don’t mind the predictable Secret Service scrutiny, probably not smart.

        • No, you just have to be willing to accept the consequences of exercising your rights, that’s all.Patrick Henry said “give me liberty or give me death.” He didn’t say, “give me liberty and leave me alone no matter what I do.”

          The Secret Service’s job is to protect the President and therefore they take every thing that looks like a threat to him seriously. If your form of political statement looks like a threat, you’re going to get looked at. If you you’re not okay with that consequence, pick another form of political statement. Write a big sign and stand out by a freeway entrance. Send in a letter to the editor. Put up a blog.

          Like I said above, from what I have heard of the incident, I don’t see anything that justifies charges of any sort.

          • “No, you just have to be willing to accept the consequences of exercising your rights, that’s all.”

            From other citizens, sure. From the government? Absolutely not because those rights were enumerate to PROTECT US from the government.

            • If in the process of exercising your rights, it looks like you may have committed a crime (threatening the President), then yeah, that includes the government as well.

              I don’t think what these guys did rises to that level, but the Secret Service will undoubtedly investigate. Which anyone with half a brain would have seen coming from a hundred miles away.

        • Unless it is intrusive or harassing, Secret Service sniffing into their lives is legal. I agree that acts of free speech should not be self-censored due to concerns over that sniffing. We also have a right to find their expression counter-productive. That’s OUR right to free expression. The SS is actually fairly well-behaved historically. The DEA and ATF? Not so much. If these guys end up wasting ATF time? Well then their speech act was useful. Budgets only go so far.

          • The SS is actually fairly well-behaved historically.

            From what I’ve heard through my friends in government, you are correct. The Secret Service is considered the Rolls Royce of government law enforcement. Still, if I had shot up a picture of POTUS and the SS came calling on me, I’d tell them to f^ck off. And not politely.

            • I’m not the least surprised. Proud of you for it. I had the odd occasion to get to know a few, and found them blunt but very respectful of rights. I spent a night getting drunk with the one who was in charge of security for Anwar Saddat’s funeral. He didn’t get the least bit drunk. laugh. Figures.

        • Patrick Henry said “give me liberty or give me death.” He didn’t say, “give me liberty and leave me alone no matter what I do.”

          Sounds like a great idealogy to me!

          • The founding fathers were completely willing to accept the consequences of what they did. The fact that you have a right to do something doesn’t mean that there will be no consequences from it. Free expression means you can express your opinions. It doesn’t mean other people can’t then scrutinize your motives and intentions or be wary of you afterward.

            Another way to look at this incident is if you want attention, don’t be unwilling to deal with attention. It’s completely predictable that if you shoot up an image of the President that you’ll get a looking at by the Secret Service. If don’t want that kind of attention, don’t do that. If you don’t mind that kind of attention, go ahead.

            Another example is if you’re not willing to be arrested, don’t join a civil disobedience protest. If you are willing, then go for it.

          • Patrick Henry wanted to shoot at redcoats, not pictures of redcoats, and was seeking open rebellion. These guys were venting their anger at a picture. They deserve to be left alone.

            • That’s what I think too, but the Secret Service isn’t just going take our word or their word for it with doing some digging first. The question they’re going to be looking at answering is whether this was just simply venting as it seems to be, or the expression of a genuine threat. If it’s the former, life goes on for everybody as it did before. If it’s the latter, then the guys committed a crime and charges are filed.

              If Patrick Henry had taken a portrait of the King into a public square and shot it, don’t you think he’d get at least a similar level of scrutiny?

            • They’ll get the once-over. You can bet that their future Internet activity will be monitored. If these guys were Muslims, the FBI would spend thousands of hours instigating a phony plot, then arrest them and throw away the key.

  11. I’m a little confused….first you said that this was bad and then you said “It’s in bad taste to shoot at any target depicting any real, live human being, except obvious enemies like OBL or Saddam Hussein” – so which is it? Obama has done far more damage to our freedoms and way of life than Saddam gassing the Kurds ever did.

  12. I’m all for free speech, and part of free speech is the freedom to say that other people’s free speech is stupid. It’s really hard to see what good these guys did for anyone, least of all for the side of the good guys. So there. That’s my free speech.

  14. “It’s in bad taste to shoot at any target depicting any real, live human being, except obvious enemies like OBL or Saddam Hussein”

    Its the exact same thing regardless who your shooting in effigy.

  15. My favorite part is where the article calls it racist. There’s nothing racist about it. They didn’t shoot the shirt because he’s black. This is a specific person who represents the fears and frustrations of a good portion of conservative America, Arizona especially. If they were dressed in sheets and were shooting random photos of black people, that’d be different.

    • Yeah, that’s ridiculous. There’s plenty of policy reasons to be angry at Obama about, from all parts of the political spectrum. Race doesn’t really have to come into it at all.

      • Obama was elected by majority vote, so how racist can this country be?

        I can only think of one other member of a racial minority who was elected head of state worldwide, and that would be Alberto Fujimori in Peru. Do any others come to mind?

        • Did I come across as sarcastic, because that wasn’t my intent.

          I really do mean that it is ridiculous to bring up the racism angle in this story. Racism definitely still exists here, and there are still plenty of people how hate Obama simply because he’s black, but there’s no evidence to show that it was a factor in these people’s decision to shoot up this shirt.

          No, like I said, there are plenty of reasons to be angry at Obama for what he’s done, no matter where you sit on the political spectrum. If you care about civil rights and constitutional checks on executive power, Obama should make your hair stand on end. His power grabs in that domain make George W. Bush look like a card-carrying member of the ACLU. Obama has pushed secrecy in government to all time highs. He’s codified the power to detain both foreigners and Americans indefinitely without charges. He’s had an American citizen executed without due process merely on his say so. He’s got a list of more people he’s targeting for such killings and has admitted as much. That’s just out and out dictatorial behavior. All that and more are extremely legitimate reasons to feel contempt for Obama.

          As for other minority world leaders, technically all of the apartheid leaders in South Africa were minority leaders, but that’s not exactly what we’re looking for here.

          • Did I come across as sarcastic

            Not at all, and I would know since I majored in sarcastic in law school, with a minor in billing.

        • He didnt win by majority vote, more eligible voters cast a vote of no confidence by abstaining from the process than voted for Obama.

          • Ya see, that’s the problem with not voting. A non-vote isn’t counted. But a “no” vote is.

            When I was young and full of, uh, something, I also thought that I would vote with my feet, like you do. I rejected voting because I thought that it would make me complicit in a failed system. All it really did was make me irrelevant.

          • It could also be interpreted as a “vote of had to work late on a Tuesday”. Seriously, can we stop having elections on a weekdays? It’s stupid.

            • That’s what early/absentee voting is for. My dad works out of town all week, so he and my mom were going to early vote together this past Saturday. I know because she called and asked me who to vote for.

              • I know, and Washington has actually moved to all absentee voting now. But having elections in the middle of the week is still stupid.

        • Manmohan Singh of India is a Sikh, which is a minority I believe. A bit difficult to say if that’s a racial minority, but probably is, tribal. This is the kind of BS I look into while waiting for the Euro open.

  16. “That’s reading a little too much into it. They shot up a shirt. It’s a big leap to call that a “public call for the gunning down of the president.””

    Hardly. They disliked the president, for whatever reason, and chose to show their distaste for him by shooting him in effigy.
    Maybe they’re just blowing steam off and would never think of shooting a living person.
    Maybe they’d love to shoot the president if the president was in rifle range and they had a rifle handy.
    Maybe they’re planning on being in rifle range of the president and making that fantasy a reality.

    You. Can’t. Say.

    That’s where the Secret Service comes in.

    What we can say is that the people in the photo are behaving in ‘mouth writing checks their body can’t cash’ manner.

    Freedom of expression does have limits. Freedom of expression does not make one immune from the results of one’s actions, as the average entitled American seems to think it does. Compared to most nations, they are very wide limits with very few and comparatively mild repercussions. They still exist though, and we would be fools to argue that they do not. There is the airy-fairy land of ‘political theory’ and the harsh ‘political reality’ of the real world. Guess which one you live in?

      • In other words, you live in a world completely devoid of subtext? In your world, there’s only the surface meaning and there can be no further message conveyed by an act? So when the rival mob family sent the fish wrapped in Luca Brasi’s bullet proof vest, to you that just meant here’s Luca Brasi’s bullet proof vest, and also a cod, in case you wanted to make fish and chips?

        • That’s the world of an attorney…until the other attorney starts to speak. It’s easy to have an opinion, fault an action. That is very different than proving the actions and intent in a courtroom. You’d be amazed at how difficult things get if you have to prove them with admissible evidence.

          • That’s also not the world the Secret Service is living in. They’re trying to preemptively intercept threats so they need to understand subtext and to investigate to see if the guys who shot up a shirt are just venting or actually making a threat with intent.

  17. As a collective group, gun owners are a defendant that is on trial every day in the court of public opinion. While I appreciate the “free speech” argument, it is also “dumb speech” insomuch as fuels the preconception that gunowners are a bunch of back-woods. red-neck, OFWG KKK members. While I dislike Barry as much as the rest of you, there are way better ways to get a point across without becoming a propanganda tool for our “friends” on the left.

    • Joe, I think most normal people can figure out that these guys were protesting in their own way, and not threatening. And while I guess that they were protesting a lot of things, I’ll bet that gun control wasn’t one of them. Not in Texas.

      We’re not Caesar’s wife. We don’t have to be perfect.

      • True, we don’t have to be perfect. Maybe it’s just young guys out dorking around–in fact, that’s probably all it is. But we don’t have to hand the other side ammunition, so to speak, to shoot at us. They’re more than happy to do that even when we’re doing everything right.

        • They’re more than happy to do that even when we’re doing everything right.

          Yes! Exactly! So what are you worried about?

          You can’t win them over by being nice. So don’t be nice.

          • I’ll second this. Worrying about what the other side is going to say is a losing strategy. Personally, it’s not something I would do, mainly because I don’t feel dealing with the pain in the ass Secret Service investigation that would ensue. But if you’re the kind of person who feels like making this kind of political statement and you’re prepared to deal with having the Secret Service poke around in your life for a while, then have at it.

            But as far as political strategy goes, don’t ever worry about what the other side will say or do in response to what you’re doing. That’s giving up the initiative. Do what you need to do, and say what you need to say, and let them react to you and they’ll always be a step behind.

          • I’d take exception to the “don’t be nice.” In the PA legislature being reasonable has led to many good recent results. It’s not a courtroom, it’s a legislature.

  19. It’s a crime to threaten the President or to encourage someone else to do him harm.
    Shooting up a tee shirt is protected speech.
    What if someone sold Obama imprinted toilet paper as a novelty?What could they do about that?
    This is not Thailand.

    • And the Secret Service will investigate if the shooting of the shirt was a form of threat or not, as they do with the constant stream of potential threats presidents receive. Chances are they’ll determine it was just some guys expressing their dissatisfaction with no intent other than to put a bunch of holes in a shirt.

      • There’s nothing wrong with being investigated by the Secret Service. Their job is to investigate every little oddity, and they know it. They aren’t out to make cases for a promotion. They’re out to protect public figures (that part of the Service). If only local DA’s had the same attitude!

  22. They’re using both their first and second amendment rights at the same time. Good for them.

    It may be in bad taste, but that’s not illegal, even up here in Seattle.

    As for photo targets, I usually use a portrait of Karl Marx.

  23. Okay… I guess I’m a bad guy. Every year innumerable high schools and colleges, just prior to big football games host a bonfire. A NORMAL event is to toss an dummy dressed as the opposing team in the fire, burning them in effigy.

    ef·fi·gy   [ef-i-jee] noun, plural -gies.
    1. a representation or image, especially sculptured, as on a monument.
    2. a crude representation of someone disliked, used for purposes of ridicule.

    I do not like certain people, the current president is one of them. Actually, it’s his policies, behaviors and attitudes I dislike but I digress. Is he, or any other public official, above being shot at or burned in effigy? Well, I’ll be damned! Why sir, would you deserve more protection than does Old Glory?

    I don’t blame the Secret Service for investigating this but come on, the Rosie O’Donnell picture on my dart board is just as little a threat to her as these young kids are to the President.

    • I do not like certain people, the current president is one of them. Actually, it’s his policies, behaviors and attitudes I dislike but I digress. Is he, or any other public official, above being shot at or burned in effigy? Well, I’ll be damned! Why sir, would you deserve more protection than does Old Glory?

      Well, if you’re referring to the US flag, it’s an inanimate object that can’t be killed, whereas Obama or any other President is a flesh and blood person who can be. Now if you meant why should an effigy of a President deserve more protection, it shouldn’t. But shooting or burning an effigy of a President or other public official and then posting it to a public forum is going to get you investigated to determine if you’re an actual threat. That’s just as predictable as the sunrise. If you’re not comfortable with that kind of scrutiny, then choose a different form of protest.

  24. I’d be more upset about the idiot in the middle pointing the gun at his buddy’s head then the idea of them shooting up the shirt with the terrorist on it.

  25. Obama should be happy about this, he is for once making some citizens happy with this, instead of constantly doing things bad for them.

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