During the No Kings protests, there was a shooting at one in Utah. It was an awful situation that never should have happened, to be sure, but it's funny that it was at a No Kings rally, not the NRA Annual Meeting or something.
Anyway, one lawmaker now wants to ban long guns at protests, and her comments are infuriating.
See, she actually defends this with a claim that she's not infringing on gun rights.
The deadly shooting of Afa Ah Loo at Salt Lake's "No Kings" protest in June prompted a friend and state lawmaker to "open a bill file" to restrict long guns at Utah rallies and protests.
"This isn't about taking anybody's gun rights away," said Rep. Verona Mauga, D-Salt Lake City. "It's about being responsible gun owners."
Her proposal would ban people from openly carrying long guns within "so many feet" of those public events in response to developments that led to the shooting on State Street in June.
Arturo Gamboa, a frequent demonstrator, was at the "No Kings" rally dressed in black and holding an automatic rifle—something associates said he had done time and again at rallies.
Police said Matt Alder, a protest "peacekeeper," considered Gamboa a threat and fired several shots—one that hit and injured Gamboa, and another that struck and killed Ah Loo.
So let's get this straight for a moment, and I'm going to do something I don't normally do here, and that's get into the whole left-right thing instead of just pro- and anti-gun.
At a leftist protest, a leftist guy with a long gun was standing there doing nothing, then the leftist "peacekeeper" got freaked out and tried to shoot the dude who had done nothing but stand there, and now everyone on the right in Utah has to be disarmed at protests.
And Mauga thinks this isn't about taking anyone's gun rights away?
I swear to all that is holy, if I were more conspiratorially minded, I'd say the whole thing was staged by leftists to try and disarm the right.
Telling people they cannot carry a certain kind of gun in a certain kind of place is, in fact, an infringement on their gun rights. Saying they can't carry at any protest ever, simply because of one incident, is, in fact, taking away their gun rights.
Mauga can tell herself whatever she wants, but that's exactly what it does. When you draw the line where people can carry, despite it being on public property, you've definitely crossed the line.
It's proof that either none of these people understand what gun rights actually are, or they're hoping everyone else is too stupid to realize what gun rights actually are.
And let's keep in mind that the guy with the rifle wasn't the problem. It was the "peacekeeper" freaking out about the guy with the rifle. The guy with the rifle was just there, and apparently was something of a fixture at area protests along with his rifle.
So he's the one who is being treated like the bad guy, because someone else was stupid.
I mean, on every level, there's nothing but stupidity in Mauga's proposal, and this is Utah, so I don't see it actually going anywhere, but it's beyond ridiculous for this to even be happening.
And for Mauga to try and pretend this isn't taking people's gun rights away is really just how anti-gunners tend to think about literally anything to do with guns. They think that if you can own an air rifle, then you've got total gun rights or something, and I'm more than a little sick of it.
Moronic behavior led to this incident, and the response here is more moronic behavior.
Par for the course from anti-gun lawmakers.
