We’re becoming similar to what Herman Melville described as sailing on a man-of-war with the guns pointed inward.

Chilling.

Your points re police going after gangbangers and better mental health treatment are right on, along with full background checks including at gun sales etc.

And in any event I personally don’t fear those cameras near as much as I do some law abiding citizen with a gun having a hissy fit due to some perceived infraction of their rights (perhaps a slight in a traffic merge or dispute over a coveted parking spot) that escalates from words to gun fight.

First of all Greg, the people who were armed at the Oak Harbor meeting were legally armed and protesting an illegal attempt to disallow people with licenses to carry a firearm from exercising their right to be armed in the public park. Being armed and openly carrying a weapon at that meeting, while upsetting to you, was not against the law. As a matter of fact, it is also not against the law in Seattle. For your information, I, too, am a legally armed citizen, having gone through the FBI background check and thus issued a licensed to carry. When I go to Lincoln Park and Schmitz park I am always armed. As upsetting as this fact must be to you, I can assure you that many other peace loving legally armed citizens are too. So far none have put the public at risk.

I suggest that if you want to rail against people “packing” you would better serve the public if you would support law enforcement aggressively going after gang bangers who couldn’t care less about your aversion to them being armed. And, honestly, I hope that you will exercise your civic duty to demand that people who are in need of mental health treatment are removed from the public at large and treated for their impairment.

This is not a perfect world, and on relatively rare occasions, I realize that people, like the legally armed man who shot up Cafe Racer, do slip through the cracks. However, even after the guy’s family, who realized their son’s impairment, tried to solicit the proper social services, they were turned down because of the present laws. Had one armed citizen been present during that incident, the outcome could have been quite different.

Phil Mocek’s comment on eavesdropping is a good point; there probably is a reasonable expectation of some privacy in personal communications in public.

I don’t buy the slippery slope argument. That argument has done this country more harm than good – remember why we escalated in Vietnam – domino theory – same diff.

Finally, we don’t live is some simple safe hamlet. When is the last week that this blog hasn’t posted about a home invasion, car theft, drive by etc. Between actual criminals and mentally disturbed folks on the streets, there’s plenty for the cops to actually be worried about besides what you may be discussing over a latte on a stroll along the boulevard.

‘The Patriot Act is essentially the antithesis of our founding documents, and this proliferation of spying devices is another example of how cheaply so many of us seem to hold the rights enshrined in those documents.
It IS is slippery slope, and since 9/11/2001, we’ve been incrementally sliding down it.’

Surveillance cameras can, potentially, be used for whatever purpose a nation that has enacted the National Defense Authorization Act chooses.

A police state is one in which a government can imprison anyone they want without any charges, other than being declared a terrorist, and held without trial for as long as that government chooses to do so. This is exactly what the National Defense Authorization Act allows for. Bye the way, both political parties voted for this law to be enacted. Now of course, we all know that Barack Obama would never do this, don’t we. But, the NDAA is part of the law of the land, and thus, it can be used and abused by any future President against whomever that President believes to fit his description of a “terrorist.”

A police state is one in which the President can compile a kill list, including American citizens, and at his, and only his, discretion use a drone to kill anybody he/she wants ……… all without a fair hearing or a trial. Now of course, we all know that Barack Obama would never do that. Why? Because he said so. But, what of a future President. With that kind of power in the hands of one man, who knows how that power could be used. Just think, if he lives long enough, Dick Cheney could be our next President.

I think it’s reasonable to demand that our government not track and record what we say and where we go whenever we step out of our homes.