In case you haven't been told by every conservative you know -- Obama's daughters have armed guards

[Algernon Moncrieff]

11 armed guards to be exact (at least that's the number thrown out there)-- I've seen this like a dozen times. The argument is that if we had 11 armed guards at every school, then tragedies like Oregon and Sandy Hook would be avoided. So my question is this: since conservatives won't pay taxes for anything else education related, who is paying for this army of guards they want to deploy? I'd have thought protecting the President's wife and children would be a high priority, given how generally paranoid they are about terrorism.

I've also seen graphics decrying the fact that the President has his own armed protection, but wants to limit gun ownership by others. I would point out that -- as a job title -- the Presidency is fairly classified as hazardous. Almost 12% (5) of the previous 43 Presidents were shot -- and only one of those (Reagan) survived. I'm not counting TR getting shot on the campaign trail in '12 (survived), nor am I counting the armed duel between would-be Presidents Hamilton & Burr. I'd venture that if 12% of any job's occupants had been shot, they'd have guards and bullet-proof vests.

E.T.A.-- so you don't have to look it up, the five shot Presidents were: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy, and Reagan.

Ford was shot at twice, but was unhurt.

[marym625]

1. they're just so fucked up in their "logic" it's astounding

[busterbrown]

11. “Logic”? We need guns to protect our forts, women and children..

Just like the olden days..

[marym625]

13. exactly! I won't even use my fort without an AK-47 at my side!

I'm not even sure an AK-47 is the name of a gun.

[marym625]

2. don't forget Bobby

He wasn't President but was well on his way.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

3. ...or George Wallace

whose '72 campaign was derailed, and he was left paralyzed.

[marym625]

5. Yes, him too

[Algernon Moncrieff]

7. I always remember that one because I lived 20 minutes away from the crime scene at the time

...and Wallace fascinates me because he is one of the few segregationists that "saw the light" later in life.

[marym625]

12. there are a few

Senator Robert Byrd immediately comes to mind. Sam Ervin is another.

[struggle4progress]

14. Wallace was a weird one. He started out as a progressive, lost an election --

apparently because he hadn't been a rabid enough racist -- and decided political power mattered enough for him to become a really foul supporter of Jim Crow

I certainly have never thought he was on the side of goodness and light, but he may have thought he was

I remembering reading some SNCC insider's memoirs about and finding a story about a black SNCC organizer who went back home to Alabama to visit and was horrified to learn his mother planned to vote for Wallace: the reason given was that, behind the scenes, he was providing more resources (like roads and schools) to black communities than anyone else ever had -- I have no idea whether the story is accurate; and I'd think Wallace was certainly doing enough damage in public, fanning the crazy flames, to more than undo any good he might have quietly done

There was a very strange event later, where he got on stage with several black folk, apologized, and asked if they understood why he had done it: they all said yes

[GreenEyedLefty]

4. Reagan's "armed guards" tackled his assailant to the ground.

So there goes that argument.

Edited to add... highly trained armed guards, at that.

[cherokeeprogressive]

6. I haven't been told by ANY conservatives, but thanks for the info. It's important to you I guess.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

8. One cannot choose one's family or coworkers

[IphengeniaBlumgarten]

9. There was also an attempt on President Truman..

In 1950 a couple of Puerto Ricans tried to storm the Blair House where the Trumans were living while the White house was being repaired/renovated. There was a shootout with police and Puerto Ricans and a least one policeman were killed. Truman was unharmed.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

10. OMG - How Could I have forgotten that???

My wife's great uncle was one of the WH cops.

Good book on that called American Gunfight

The deceased WH policeman was Leslie Coffelt. Thanks for bringing it up.

[Half-Century Man]

15. Well, they are the daughters of the President

who is constantly being portrayed to a heavily armed increasingly desperate portion of the population with a lot of latent if not overt racist tendencies; that he is the root cause of their ever increasing poverty, loss of some perceived hereditary place in society, unfulfilled promises made by politicians, and feelings of helplessness.
By the very politicians who have broken, or never intended to keep, those promises. By people with a huge vested interest in keeping that heavily armed and increasingly desperate base suppressed and angry. By people who will squeeze that base even harder to make any sort of profit.


The presence of armed guards is as surprising as dawn in the east.