Possible armed protested in Washington D.C.

From what I understand, a possible armed protest is being planned for Washington D.C. on the Fourth of July, being promoted by libertarian Internet talk show host and former Marine (though I know some Marines have a hang-up about being called "ex" or "former") Adam Kokesh.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/protest-group-plans-july-4-march-on-washington-with-loaded-rifles/2013/05/07/59b8e392-b727-11e2-aa9e-a02b765ff0ea_story.htm

• Protest group plans July 4 march on Washington with loaded rifles
  
  By Peter Hermann, Tuesday, May 7, 1:44 PM
  
  An Internet talk show host is trying to gather protesters to march into the District on July 4 carrying loaded rifles, prompting a warning from D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier that her own armed force will meet them at the border.
  
  “If you’re coming here to protest government policy, great,” the chief said Tuesday on her monthly appearance on NewsChannel 8, reacting to the group’s plan to cross the Potomac from Arlington National Cemetery. “If you’re coming here to break the law, we’ll take action.”
  
  Lanier added, “There’s a pretty good chance we’ll meet them on the D.C. side of the bridge.”
  
  So will the U.S. Park Police, Sgt. Paul Brooks said. If the protesters go through with the march, Park Police will be waiting for them at the District line, which happens to be on U.S. Park Service property, near the Virginia side of Memorial Bridge.
  
  News of the march comes amid a national debate over gun regulations that emerged following the Newtown, Conn., massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. And it is scheduled to take place in one of the most strictly regulated cities when it comes to firearms laws. Washington allows residents to possess registered firearms on their own property, but the city forbids carrying those weapons in public.
  
  Authorities noted that they have not been in contact with the group’s leader, Adam Kokesh, a 31-year-old U.S. Marine who served in Iraq and returned a self-proclaimed libertarian and anti-war activist. Kokesh publicized his plans in Internet postings.
  
  On his blog, “Adam Vs The Man,” Kokesh called on people to register for the march, which he called an act of civil disobedience. He said protesters with loaded guns slung across their backs will march around the U.S. Capitol, the Supreme Court and the White House. Thus far, 2,500 people have signed up to participate, Kokesh said.
  
  On the blog, Kokesh wrote that he is planning a nonviolent protest, but he won’t predict what could happen if the police move in with force. He urged protesters to submit to arrests and said the group will peacefully turn back if denied entry into the District. But separately, he said some protesterers plan to take a step into the District to prompt an arrest.
  
  “We will march with rifles loaded and flung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated and cower in submission to tyranny,” Kokesh wrote on the Internet site. “Should we meet physical resistance, we will peacefully turn back, having shown that free people are not welcome in Washington. ... We are truly saying in the SUBTLEST way possible that we would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.”
  
  In an interview, Kokesh said said the march is not aimed at protesting the District’s gun laws specifically but is “more to assert our rights as individuals on Independence Day.”
  
  He said he wants to work with law enforcement and hopes that Lanier will make an exception to the law and grant his group safe passage, and even a police escort, through the District.
  
  Brooks, with the Park Police, said guns are not allowed in the cemetery in Arlington. But he said it appears the group plans to start just outside the cemetery gates, along Memorial Drive. He said the organization has not sought a permit, as required for demonstrations on National Park Service property, but Kokesh said on the web site he does not intend to get one.
  
  Lanier said on the television program that city representatives are willing to meet with Kokesh and other leaders “to facilitate whatever they want to get accomplished in a legal way.” But, she said, “passing into the District with loaded firearms is a violation of the law and it will be treated as such.”

 

Gun Protesters Plan March On Washington With Loaded Rifles To ‘Put The Government On Notice’

By Rebecca Leber on May 5, 2013 at 1:35 pm



Almost 900 people are RSVPed for a July 4th march on Washington, D.C. where protesters plan to carry loaded rifles. In D.C., openly carrying guns is against the law. But the organizer of the event, libertarian radio host Adam Kokesh, says the march is an act of “civil disobedience” that attempts to prove gun advocates’ point in the “SUBTLEST way possible.”
The event’s Facebook invitation describes the march as a nonviolent demonstration, “unless the government chooses to make it violent”:

This is an act of civil disobedience, not a permitted event. We will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated & cower in submission to tyranny. We are marching to mark the high water mark of government & to turn the tide. This will be a non-violent event, unless the government chooses to make it violent. Should we meet physical resistance, we will peacefully turn back, having shown that free people are not welcome in Washington, & returning with the resolve that the politicians, bureaucrats, & enforcers of the federal government will not be welcome in the land of the free.
There’s a remote chance that there will be violence as there has been from government before, and I think it should be clear that if anyone involved in this event is approached respectfully by agents of the state, they will submit to arrest without resisting. We are truly saying in the SUBTLEST way possible that we would rather die on our feet than live on our knees. ​

It is not exactly clear whether Kokesh will carry through with the event, since he says it needs to reach a critical mass of 10,000 RSVPs first. However, the National Rifle Association is newly reenergized after the Senate filibuster of background check legislation.
Salon’s Alex Seitz-Wald notes that Kokesh has expressed increasingly radical views on his show and on Twitter. Just this week, he called for the abolishment of the U.S. government.
Generally, open carry demonstrations have occurred in places with weaker gun laws, as well as a litmus test for how far gun violence laws can be challenged. Most recently, a group of men brought their rifles to intimidate moms who rallied for action on gun violence. “Another group brought guns into a Virginia public library full of children, while demonstrators in Oregon brandished assault rifles in the State Capitol.

 

Second Amendment Test or Horrible Idea? Activist Calls for Armed Protesters to March on Washington, D.C. | TheBlaze.com

 

All in all? Every person here knows this is going to happen sooner or later. This is why we prep, train,stay armed and in a defensive posture. Sooner or later this shit WILL hit the fan. I was part of the Michigan Militia for several decades most recently in the West Michigan Volunteers. I can tell you all this there are many good law abiding citizens ready to throw this filth out of office. Republicans and Democrats alike. Before I will embrace government it must embrace the constitution NOT this new Normal. KF

 

Marine vet plans peaceful July 4 armed march into D.C.

Marine vet plans peaceful July 4 armed march into D.C.

Michael Winter, USA TODAY6:18 p.m. EDT May 7, 2013
Libertarian anti-war activist Adam Kokesh seeks 10,000 supporters for "civil disobedience." Police issue warning.


(Photo: File photo by Brendan Smialowski, Bloomberg News)
Story Highlights

• Adam Kokesh calls armed march "an act of civil disobedience"
• D.C. residents can have registered firearms only on their own property, not in public
• Washington police and the U.S. Park Police say they will confront the "open carry" marchers

A Marine Corps veteran who became a vocal anti-war activist is rounding up armed followers to march peacefully into the nation's capital on Independence Day as "an act of civil disobedience."
Washington police and the U.S. Park Police say they will confront the "open carry" marchers if they step across the border dividing Virginia from the District of Columbia. Washington residents can have registered firearms only on their own property, not in public.
The march is being organized by Adam Kokesh, a former Internet talk radio host who in 2008 disrupted Sen. John McCain's presidential nomination acceptance at the GOP convention because of the nominee's support for the Iraq War.
The avowed libertarian wants to "muster" supporters outside Arlington National Cemetery on July 4 and cross the Potomac River on the Memorial Bridge and then march around the U.S. Capitol, the Supreme Court and the White House "with rifles loaded & slung across our backs."
Kokesh, 31, is seeking a "critical mass" of 10,000 marchers by June 1. As of Tuesday, about 3,000 people had signed up.
D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier warned Tuesday that marchers could expect to be met by officers on the D.C. side of the bridge.
"If you are coming here to protest government policy, great," Lanier said, according to WJLA-TV. "We're all for it. We'll work with you. We'll get you in and where you want to go. We'll facilitate you moving in and around the city. If you're coming here to break the law, then we're going to take action."
A Park Police spokesman told The Washington Post that U.S. officers would be there, too, because the district is federal property.
Kokesh, who has been arrested for anti-war protests and for dancing at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, said there "will be coordination" with police beforehand.
"I will recommend that they do the best they can to honor their oaths and escort us on our route," Kokesh writes on his site, Adam vs. The Man. "Failing to provide that commitment to safety, we will either be informed that we will only be allowed up to a certain point where we would be arrested."
Here's how he explains the event:

This is an act of civil disobedience, not a permitted event. We will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated & cower in submission to tyranny. We are marching to mark the high water mark of government & to turn the tide. This will be a non-violent event, unless the government chooses to make it violent. Should we meet physical resistance, we will peacefully turn back, having shown that free people are not welcome in Washington, & returning with the resolve that the politicians, bureaucrats, & enforcers of the federal government will not be welcome in the land of the free.​

Kokesh has not applied for a march permit and said he would not obtain one.
He told the Post that the march is not specifically aimed at protesting the district's strict gun laws but is "more to assert our rights as individuals on Independence Day."
At a rally for free speech last June, Kokesh spoke out against a proposed $20 fine for profanity in Middleborough, Mass.
In 2010, Kokesh ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for a congressional seat in New Mexico. He was supported by former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul.

 

This...is going to end badly, if it goes off at all.

 

No kidding. I hope everyone that decides to participate sells their other guns before hand, because they won't be able to own one after they get out of jail.

This will do way more harm than good in so many ways. There will be radical anti gun folks doing everything they can to ensure someone gets shot and the media will make sure it looks like it's the NRAs fault.

If people want to protest in DC, strap on an empty holster and go protest, but if you think going into DC with a loaded gun is going to help the cause, your cause must be to ensure the anti gun people get what they want, because that will be the end result.

 

I agree completely. One anti-gunner acting as a sniper.......all heck would break loose. and we all lose more than we gain. Good point on gun ownership as well.

 

Insofar as the matter of what happens when the other side pushes back against our pushing back, I don't know why the obvious answer eludes people considering it's the very basis of reality as we know it, and has been since time immemorial. There are two ways to get what you want in this world regarding matters that are contested, either through voluntary cooperation, or through force. It would certainly be nice if all the world could operate on voluntary cooperation, but that's not reality because different people all hold genuine beliefs that they are the ones who are right, and as a consequence, won't give in if they feel this way... not voluntarily. When mutual agreement fails, objectives are achieved by force. That's what government is, and that's what laws are, force... naked force.

So either people don't understand that the obvious answer to being pushed is to push back harder (and you repeat that step as man times is as necessary - and that includes the hypothetical situation that this protest goes bad and leads to a backlash... the answer is you lash back at their backlash... and you keep repeating the iterations until infinity, because ideological wars are never truly won.. not so long as new generations continue to come along and continue to fight the same battles for decades, centuries, even millennia), or this is some kind of implicit recognition on peoples part that the think we are the weaker party and that we can't win. Maybe gun rights advocates are the weaker party, I can't say for sure and I don't know if anyone truly knows the answer to that with any degree of certainty, but the odds certainly don't seem disproportional in the other sides favor in any case so I think completely writing off the idea that its not possible to fight back is not well founded in any statistics.

 

To late boy's, Anything one does in the name of freedom is already under attack.

The media ? To late for them , They already highlight anything gun realated.

Nevermind that it's a Democrat generated problem.

Some see this as Attack, Attack, Attack, for your freedom.

The line's are being drawn, We shall see soon.

 

The Romans never allowed a trouble spot to remain simply to avoid going to war over it, because they knew that wars don't just go away, they are only postponed to someone else's advantage.-Machiavelli
I am astonished to see some people still think elections are real, it is a selection of figure head, the direction will remain the same. Obuma ran on "change" he renewed the patriot act and topped it off with NDAA, Big banks get hand outs and wars continue, snap out of it people..the system is rigged..coke or pepsi it's still high fructose corn syrup on the inside, the right left paradigm is their tool of control, a revolution is the only way..look at what they did to Ron Paul, his own party changed the rules last second to make sure he could not speak at the RNC. Romney was set to fail, electronic voting machines are controlled, why wait for them to take us out one by one? together we are strong, alone we are weak, take it to em, postponing the inevitable only gives them more time to prepare and execute their plan to their advantage. most of you agree gun grabbing is on the top of the agenda so what exactly are we waiting for? martial law and our turn to have our door kicked in by 60 man swat team? the administration is intent on getting the guns one way or another, brain washing is rampant on the MSM and in hollywood, back round checks would not have prevented sandy or aurora yet that is what they are using to push the agenda, it has nothing to do with protecting the innocent, it is 100% about dis arming the country to prevent the inevitable revolution, they know its coming, we know its coming so why are we sitting around letting them stock pile ammo and select fire AR 15's? remove the cancer in Washington and restore the bill of rights and constitution as originally written.

 

Think I will sit this one out. Cannot see any good happening there. Some idiot would open fire and it would be hell to pay all up and down the line of march.

 

What we need is a million man march. Every man carry a sign that says next time this will be my rifle.

 

If we could get a million to show up, that would actually work.

 

I agree with others who have said that they don't expect anything good to come of this, and will go farther and say that I don't expect anything, good or bad, to come of this; and bfayer is right - if the participants thought their gun ownership was under attack before, they will have a whole new perspective after the protest. They will no longer be gun owners. You gotta pick your battles, and thumbing your nose at federal and state authorities, and local firearms laws, is not a battle; it's a suicide attempt.

I'm a huge supporter of the second amendment, but this particular protest smacks of grandstanding. Even if it went off as advertised, it would prove nothing and accomplish nothing. It would only convince the anti-gun crowd that gun owners are even more dangerous than they previously thought, and would serve to redouble the anti-gun crowd's efforts at more stringent gun laws. Gun owners are going to have to become more involved, and make themselves heard at the ballot box. If we can't do that, we've already lost. If gun owners can't change or prevent anti-gun legislation in their city or state, then they are going to have to vote with their feet and move to a more gun friendly area. That's the flip-side of a so-called democratic system - The majority will eventually rule; even if the majority is stupid.

I accept that attempted gun confiscation on a general level would probably lead to shooting, and folks on both sides of the issue should be realistic about it. It could lead to a lot of shooting, a lot of pain and death, and could be the triggering event for some level of revolution or civil war. It would take an actual attempt at general gun confiscation though, to mobilize enough gun owners to any sort of armed resistance, and by and large will initially consist of individuals resisting LEO forces as they cross his or her individual threshold, not anything on a community or regional level. A couple of atrocities occurring during these confiscation attempts might actually mobilize folks into a community response, but it won't happen right away.

Government response will be the deciding factor, just as has played out in the revolution currently going on in Syria. A strong-armed, testosterone-laden response, could mobilize wide spread resistance. If the government exercises subtlety and restraint, there will be no effective resistance. Frog in the pot.

Loose talk about any sort of revolutionary action now is just that - loose talk; and talk is cheap. Folks advocating armed resistance, should get on with it, slide out from behind their computer, pull on their big boy pants, and act on their convictions, rather than urging others out into the front lines. It's easy to talk revolution. It's harder to step out onto Lexington Green, and say "this far, and no farther."

 

This is what I see,,Bad Type of protest !



Do a general strike ,

 

I was trying to get every State unorganized Militia to march into Washington "in uniform" with drums beating and units separated by state. Couldn't get anyone to sign on to that either. There are near 500,000 Militia men nation wide. Even if just 50,000 showed up it would be impressive and would send a message. I decided to leave the Michigan Militia back in January. I call it retirement from active duty. At 55 I am good for march or two, Muster or show of force. Too many of them dont want anyone to know they are active. Under cover militia does not send the right message to government. To make them notice you have to walk right up to them and do a regress of grievances. To walk up armed and loaded is to incite insurrection and the Constitution gives the Government the right to put down insurrections. The civil war is a lesson in history of how this government works. Until the South fired on fort Sumpter the north was not allowed by law to raise arms against them. The south fired first and therefore the Union had every right to put the rebellion down. This must be reversed for the people to be able to lay claim to a government over stepping its right to bear arms against its people. The Government has to shoot first.

 

QUOTE: "...To walk up armed and loaded is to incite insurrection..."

It is? I guess the millions of innocent gun owners should be lucky that you are not a government prosecutor who calls the shots and makes such legal determinations. That rationalization seems only a step removed from the anti-gun people who likewise argue that 'open carry' in public, even with an unloaded weapons, is a threat worth of prosecution simply because it's perceived as an imaginary threat by those who are skittish.




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QUOTE: "... The Government has to shoot first..."

They've already done that, time and again. How many decades and centuries does it have to go on, exactly? Or just as importantly, how many times do we have to let them do it and completely sweep it under the carpet pretending they have not done it at all, or even if recognizing that they have, rationalizing to ourselves that it hasn't met some threshold which as we all know involves never-ending "shifting of the goal posts."

Self defense does not mandate allowing the other person to shoot first, anyway, else we'd be prosecuting police officers on a habitual basis for defending themselves. Regardless of whether you meant that literally, I still defer to the previous paragraph insofar as asserting that this commonly perpetuated argument about letting "them act first" is a sham. The water is so far under the bridge and down the river at this point, that that water already left the river, dumped into the ocean, and then circulated in the oceans currents throughout the world already. That point has been reached long ago, and all this stuff about them acting first is just the worst form of denialism imaginable, and that ostrich-head-in-the-sand apathy or denialism is going to be what really kills this country.

Nothing will ever get better so long as people keep changing the goal posts about just how bad the government has to screw people over before it constitutes an affirmative aggressive action on the governments part. It's certainly not going to be a bunch of dudes (be it twenty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand..) who march around with loaded guns and make people skittish that is going to doom this country. Such a belief is the most insane form of scapegoating imaginable. The people that are dooming this country is "everyone else," all the hordes of milquetoast people who are too busy spending all their time talking about the day when government finally steps over this ever-changing goalpost line instead of recognizing that it's water under the bridge and that day has come and went, and moving on having accepted that reality.