(h/t CSPANjunkie)

I caught this on Tuesday and it's not shocking. I mean, the Secret Service agent's reaction to the psychos is not shocking. It's sane. Remember sanity?

CNN's Rick Sanchez had on a former Secret Service agent named on his show to talk about the psycho gun-toting teabaggers showing up at presidential events. You would never see this behavior under a Republican president because: A) They like Republicans. B) The Republicans would never allow it. You needed to sign loyalty oaths just to go to Bush/Cheney events.

Joseph Petro explains that this is insane behavior and it's an intimidation tactic by these yahoos, plain and simple.

Digby:

Former USSS officer: If the police have to go out and deal with these foolish gun nuts with exposed weapons in public crowds, they are being taken awy from activity that is much more important and that is to keep our president safe and to kep the public safe.

Rick Sanchez: In all your years as a Secret Service agent have you ever seen anything like this? Ten to twelve people yesterday were walking around this venue where the president was, walking outside, and they were packing. Have you ever seen a situation like that?

USSS: No, I've never seen or heard of anything like that. And I think it's, you know, I think all of us should be concerned about this. What's the next step? Are they going to ride around in pick-up trucks with automatic weapons? it would be like Somalia.

We're a democratic country. And we should be better than this. And what's the point? What's the point of them carrying these things? It's intimidation. Why hsould we tolerate that?

Sanchez: It's free speech and their point is that "we've got a right to come out and show everybody that we're for a constitution that gives us a right to bear arms.

USSS: It's probably also not against the law to bring a can of gas and a match into an event. Is that a good idea? No.

Having exposed weapons at public events, and it's not just presidential events, I would say this at any public event, particularly where people are disagreeing, it's really a formula for disaster.

Why does the picture of a bunch of yahoos driving around in pick-up trucks with automatic weapons not sound all that far fetched to me? And when you add the gasbags shrieking about liberals being the enemy all day long, this doesn't seem so far-fetched either.

People are going to either get hurt or die and the media still will whiff on this because they act like cowards.