This is why Libertarians ideals never work in the real world. It is a childish ideology. The thought that if every single person at that event was carrying a loaded weapon would make everyone safer is blind demagoguery at its worst.

if this guy is not a total loner, I pity anyone who shares their life with him

This guy's right. Guns dont kill people. People with guns kill people. One troubling demographic to keep an eye on are those unhinged, gun-packin, socialist-Massachusetts-hatin, sign-carryin protest nutters who wish to spill 'tyrant' blood on a liberty tree.

I am rarely surprised at the depth of ignorance in this country anymore, but I am becoming surprised that there are so many of them out there. We have an epidemic of crazies. Thanks Rush, Glen, Shaun, Lou and Bill.

How did this guy not get arrested?

Is this guy a specimen of what Matthews refers to as "regular Americans?"

So, according to Bugeye Bobblehead, the problem with our society is that not enough people are armed!

Why is Matthews giving a nutjob like this air time?

PEACE

I seem to recall David Reese of 'Get Your War On' fame satirically making reference to Obama's "give all the white peoples' guns to the black people program." This Kostric clown reminds me of Reese's reactionary conservative white guy 'Accounts Payable' character minus the repartee and, presumably, about twenty IQ points.

Too bad you can't strap those to your leg.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Carrying a gun, I imagine he sees himself a patriot, so where's the tyrant?

I saw the interview and the guy was quite reasonable and even articulate, in my view. The sign, however instantly disturbed me when I saw a still photo of the event earlier today. This well-disciplined young man in a tee shirt reminded me just a little too much of another fellow whose sign read "Fair Play for Cuba."

Isn't there a federal law that prevents a gun within 1000 feet of school property.. Doesn't it apply to this case?

(2) Title 18, United State Code, Section 922, paragraph (q) is the Gun Free School Zones Act. You can’t have a gun in, on the grounds of, or within 1,000 feet of the property line of, an elementary or secondary school, whether public or private. (Note that this doesn’t include colleges or universities.)

Well, y'know...they're bullies, plain and simple. It was enough for them to show up at these things and scream and chant, while they were surrounded by frightened senior citizens who had shown up to get answers from their members of Congress. Now they're surrounded by belligerent young urban Dems and organized labor people who will get right in their faces and scream back, and they can't handle it, so they're toting guns. And eventually, one of them will find himself being glared at by an angry blue collar worker who also has a gun. At that point, unless Security will let them walk in with a flamethrower or bazooka, they'll probably go back to teabagging on the lawn.

It's unfortunate that the cops are too busy infiltrating the peace movement to be bothered with checking on whose coming to see the President at his town hall meetings. Can we finally bury the idea that the lefties are the ones more prone to violence. We're talking about health care reform for everyone and they want to make war. Christ, you try and lead a conservative to water and they're likely to drown you in it.

The Right realizes something the Left doesn't--this isn't about healthcare.

This is about whether people like this can shut down our ability to address important problems.

Seriously, this guy is just plain nuts. And it IS a problem that health insurance costs a fortune, and that 47 million people don't have it at all, and that basically if you get really sick there's a strong chance you're in a literal "your money or your life" situation. If you're lucky enough to have the money.

There's room for actual debate here. I mean, I want things changed about this bill.

But anyone ginning up crazy guys like this simply isn't interested in anything approaching Democracy. There's a cottage industry of politicians and right-wing operatives who believe their path to fame, money, and power lies in ginning up these nutjobs.

It's a horrible game, because it destroys our ability to actually address the real problems we face as a society.

It's time every Republican is asked if they stand with or against the teabaggers. There's no "but they have a point" nonsense. They're talking about euthanasia. They're bringing guns to town halls. The point they're making is that if you scream loud enough, you can shut down democracy.

Do Republicans support this or not?

Great, another Paulite 10th Amendmenter who believes that government has exactly those powers expressely enumerated in the constitution and nothing more. Federal Reserve, IRS, Dept of Education, interstate highway system, Homestead Act--all unconstitutional. And my ponies are named Patrick and Henry and like to converse in Esperanto.

Some people escape to fantasy worlds from time to time to unwind. Others live in those worlds and only come out from time to time to raise trouble.

I think this guy is celebrating his 15 minutes of fame prematurely.

True, the local police concluded it was legal for him to have a gun at that location, and they were probably right for their jurisdiction. The Secret Service, on the other hand, may well decide that the gun, when combined with occassion and the sign (which essentially said, "it's time to spill the blood of a tyrant") consituted an deliberate and imminent threat on Obama's life, which is of course illegal.

Squeaky Fromme just spent 30 years of a life sentence in jail for pointing a gun at Gerald Ford, after removing the cartridge from the firing chamber. (OK, I know nothing about guns, but I assume this means that she could not have fired at him and therefore it was more of a threat than an attempt.)

I think a prosecutor could make the case against this guy with the existing evidence that he broke the law, but no doubt Kostric bragged to his friends online and via email about his plans, perhaps using even more bravado, and one hopes the secret service will uncover that.

Someone should have warned Mr. Kostric that besides "Live Free or Die" there is a third option: "spend a couple of decades in prison because you did something incredibly stupid."

I wish this clown had been asked one question: "Do you feel that your penis is perhaps a bit smaller than the average guy?" And then we could watch his head explode, because THAT IS WHAT CARRYING GUNS IS ALL ABOUT! Sorry about that, but them's the facts, dude! Now, I do expect other heads to be exploding about now, also, including well-intentioned liberal heads who can rant about the Second Amendment just as much as rightwing idiots. But that's okay. Some liberals have small penises, too, and so they also like their guns.

The GOP "leaders" in Congress have been as silent as a mouse the last few weeks as these people get more unhinged. They don't want to be seen supporting the tea partiers, but they don't want to shut them down either. They're stuck, and the result is the nuts running the nuthouse.

It's a Jefferson quote, but no one's mentioned the other significance: it was on McVeigh's T-shirt when he was arrested.