Veteran passionately defends Second Amendment at Chicago anti-gun forum

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
Jan 23, 2013

A pro-gun control meeting held by New Trier Democrats in Glenview, Chicago, turned into a raucous exchange Sunday when most of the audience members took offense to comparisons of gun enthusiasts to Nazis.

The event was labeled as a forum on “Guns and Public Safety” and a “space for real conversation,” however, it quickly became clear that the organisers were vehemently in favour of strict gun control measures, and very much against the protection of Second Amendment rights.

Audience members felt they were being subjected to one sided presentations and slideshows, and attempted to question the speakers at the event, only to be repeatedly told they could not speak and should reserve their questions and comments for the Q&A at the end.

Speakers included Mark Walsh, campaign director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence; Lee Goodman, of the Stop Concealed Carry Coalition; and Northfield residents Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins of the Million Moms March and her husband, author and gun control advocate Bill Jenkins.

It was emphatically obvious that the event represented an all out assault on Second Amendment advocates, and over two thirds of the 160 strong crowd began to shout down the speakers in protest.

At one point, as reported by the Wilmette Sun Times, speaker Bill Jenkins referred to manufacturers of guns and ammunition as “A desperate group of people that are really in financial trouble.”

Things got really heated, however, when Jenkins displayed a photograph of a Nazi rally on a screen with the caption, “this is what a gun show looks like”. Following that he displayed a picture of a chihuahua with the words “this is what I think the NRA really is”.

The verbal exchanges between organisers, speakers and audience members went back and forth, and became even more heated when Lee Goodman of the Stop Concealed Carry Coalition responded to a question about the intentions of the Founders when they included the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Goodman stated that “it didn’t matter,” and said “all that matters is whether or not it’s relevant today.”

That comment was enough for one member of the audience, also a combat veteran, who stood up and passionately defended the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment:

“I’ve sat here [inaudible] and I’d like to agree with the professor. Everyone standing in this room right now, especially the veterans in the room right now, know, that we are all Americans. The problem with this country right now is it’s us and it’s f***ing them. We need to stop this crap.”

“I went to war for your ability to have the First Amendment, to say what you stood up there and said today, to write what you want to write in your newspaper, and have whatever opinion you want to have.” the man stated.

“You can practice whatever religious freedoms you want. I would like you to answer the question, since you just said that one of the rights that I went to war over to defend, that is inalienable, to every American citizen. If this discussion was going on, about your First Amendment rights, would you still have the same opinion that we don’t need that any more either?” he asked Goodman.

Goodman argued that his comments had been misunderstood and stated “When they consider any part of the Constitution, any law, they’re going to say, ‘what does it mean today?'”

To which the veteran shot back “The threat of tyranny, today, is no less than at the turn of the century in 1900, in 1800, or in 1700!”

The crowd then erupted into applause. Watch the video:

After the event was over, organiser and speaker Mark Walsh attempted to downplay the backlash, describing the crowd’s reaction as “pretty tame”.

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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, and Prisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.

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