The intimidation in Michigan worked: Lawmakers did repeal the law, and though Polehanki did not vote with the majority, she told me the threat was clear: “When I can’t speak freely and press my vote button because someone is standing over me with a rifle, you’re infringing on my First Amendment rights.” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel agreed that the protesters had crossed the line from simply carrying weapons to brandishing them—making a threat. (Later, it turned out that several men present were plotting to kidnap the governor.)
For a decade, we’ve been slowly adjusting to the new role of guns in public life. We’ve redesigned schools, installed metal detectors at every theater and arena, and endured horrific massacres at events including a Brooklyn block party, a California garlic festival, an El Paso, Texas, Walmart, and a Dayton, Ohio, nightlife district. And that was just over eight days in 2019. While the pandemic has brought some respite from headline-grabbing massacres such as school shootings, the toll of gun violence in 2020 was even worse than the year before. Shootings almost doubled in New York City. Murders in both Chicago and New York rose by 50 percent. This trend was consistent across most U.S. cities.
And while America’s trigger-happy policing is not new, police departments justify the warrior-cop equipment on display at this summer’s protests by citing the heavily armed populace. Indeed, police are more likely to kill and to be killed in parts of America where more people own guns.
So in a way, confronting the role of guns in political life—from Washington to Lansing to beleaguered county commissions—is long overdue. After Michigan, the issue flared again this summer as militia groups confronted Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; and Kenosha, Wisconsin. Several people were killed.
When the rioters entered Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s suite in the Capitol last week, staffers hiding in her conference room had turned off the lights and barricaded the door—techniques, she told 60 Minutes, they learned from active shooter drills in high school. (...)
... sooner rather than later, we’re going to have to deal with the oxymoron of open-carry democracy. How do we permit a populace armed to the teeth to safely march, to rally, to watch its government in action, to confront and engage with politicians at will? When does the mere presence of a gun become a threat?[ed. See also: Chekhov's gun: 'If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off.']
