Obama’s Organizing for America held a gun control rally today at the Old Capitol Plaza in Springfield.
Our old friend Tom Shafer was there.
He reports ten people were there. Five men, five women. And one homeless bum sleeping on a bench. And forty feet away was some guy with a CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) T-shirt talking about God, mind-control and other silliness.
The media came and conducted more interviews there, he said, than they did at the entire IGOLD rally in March, where 9,000+ Illinois gun owners turned out en masse to march to the Illinois Capitol and rally while the legislature was in session.
Shafer had done his research ahead of time and discovered OFA had no rally permit.
So Tom called the cops.
The cops showed up and gave Mary Kay Mace and the rest of the merry band of less than a dozen fringe OFA agitators the boot.
Calls were made and the leader of this farce went to City Hall and obtained some sort of emergency permit.
Permit in hand, they set up a sound system. Why they needed a sound system with ten people in attendance is beyond me. Maybe to make sure the media could hear their message.
In any event, the sound system was a trainwreck. Feedback obscured their message and drove passersby away.
In the end, they literally screeched out a rambling message through a number of speakers for twenty-seven minutes… and spent the last seven prattling on about amnesty for illegal aliens.
It was a farce.
It could have been worse. Barely. They could have had two or three people show up like happened recently in other cities. Such as San Bernardino (three) or Rockford, IL (four).
That very spot is where Obummer announced his run for President in 2007.
Tom Shafer is great.
And I wonder if the anti gun group paid the city for any extra expenses they incurred from the Rally? Emergency permits? What was the emergency?
I know IGOLD paid the bills they recieved and paid for the permits and got them by the book.
I also know that the Obama campaign never paid the bills they were given.
I say turn them over to collections.
But the local political hacks decide to just foregt about the bills.
Us they would turn over to collections for sure!
While I completely disagree with their ideas and beliefs, its pretty terrible to report them for not having a permit. This is America with freedom of speech and the right to peacefully assemble. We can’t argue that permits and registration are bad ideas for the right to keep and bear arms, and then go and demand permits and registration for the right to peacefully assemble.
All of our rights should have the same standards. That’s what we should demand.
Patrick Henry is right. Although I will say I would have been tempted to call the cops too.
While you are correct, the fact remains that anyone wishing to stage a rally needs a permit. Thus, as it stands, if they don’t have a permit, they should not be allowed to have their rally. If you really don’t want people to need a permit, change the laws, don’t just sit there and complain about it… do something!
Oh Puhleeze,,, they would not only have called the police on us in the same position, they would have had the nsa, tsa, and the swat team on us as well.
I don’t think we would be able to make a couple calls and get an “emergency” permit either.
Just because they would be petty enough to do it, doesn’t mean we should. They have a double standard from the government, let’s not have a double standard when it comes to rights.
I don’t agree with the law, but if it going to apply to us, it should apply to them as well.
We have to start holding the opposition to the same standards applied to us.
Double standard? They’re talking about applying the same laws for everyone. Under the constitution that’s called equal protection under the laws. If we have to follow a law, so does everyone else.
The entire gaggle of King Pinocchio loyalist showed up. I am amazed his popularity remains that high.
He wants to ban guns. We want to ban idiots in office.
Jakob Stagg: Your right and who do you think is winning as of now? We still have the idiots in office and they are still trying to get our guns.