This should’ve been one of the biggest domestic news stories of the weekend, but as a sense of futility sweeps nation in the face of increasingly commonplace incidents of gun violence followed by aggressive, defiant reactions from the gun lobby, it went sadly ignored.
A gun control activist group called Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, or MDA for short, held a membership meeting at the Blue Mesa Grill in Dallas, Texas on Saturday. Not a protest or a public rally, just a meeting over some Tex-Mex and beverages.
Harmless enough. A group of moms, activated by last year’s gun massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, gathered to discuss ways to boost membership and popular support for gun control legislation. The group’s goals are standard fare:
1. Require background checks for all gun and ammunition purchases;
2. Ban assault weapons and ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds;
3. Track the sale of large quantities of ammunition, and ban online sales;
4. Establish product safety oversight of guns and ammunition, and require child-safe gun technology;
5. Support policies at companies and public institutions that promote gun safety;
6. Counter the gun industry’s efforts to weaken gun laws at the state level.
There’s nothing particularly radical about this agenda. However, MDA and other gun control activists are up against a deeply entrenched extremists fueled by a bottomless treasure chest of cash, and any gun control legislation is perceived as a radical trespass against the Constitution, even laws like expanded background checks that are supported by 80 percent of Americans. And so, right on cue, a company of pro-gun extremists appeared outside the Blue Mesa Grill to counter-protest a non-protest lunch meeting, and they did so in the most over-the-top, aggressive way possible.
40 armed gunmen representing the pro-gun group Open Carry Texas (OCT) gathered in the parking lot of the restaurant — fully armed, with some of the gunmen crouched as if in a line of battle. Among other things, OCT believes Texas law is too restrictive against gun owners, forbidding open carry. Yes, Texas is too liberal for OCT… [CONTINUE READING]