Day of Resistance: Idaho

I'm not a great judge of crowd size, but this event was inside the rotunda of the Idaho State Capitol; my estimate (based on counting those standing in my sector, then multiplying by sixteen sectors per floor, and three floors) is about 1000 people.

Here the crowd was just beginning to come into the building about 11:40 or so.

 

There were, of course, people in costume, probably less effective in swaying public opinion than they think:

 

"Ben Franklin" was holding a sign with a quote that I have often seen attributed to Franklin, but that is so modern that I am quite sure he never said it.

Some of those dressed in Colonial officer's uniforms had interesting arms on-board, which at least were making a point about what the Founders would have owned, had they access to modern weapons:

There were, of course, many signs, some that are so old that they are now cliched, and some that were often pretty clever.  One kid was carrying this sign:

Another, while not particularly deep, certainly is true and not cliched:

When we arrived, there was a drum circle playing in the rotunda.  Drum circle?  What?  When did the gun rights movement go all New Age?  I was told that these were Snake River Alliance, one of the local far left groups here in Idaho.  I wondered at first if they were going to try and drown us out with their drumming (which was really, really excellent, by the way), but they stopped when our event started, so I suspect that they were simply trying to drive the bad karma of crazed gun nuts out of the building or something.  Maybe they thought it would retune our chakras to make us give up the gun.  Who knows.

There were some people on our side wearing some clothing that made valid, if not spectacularly deep points.  Sometimes important ideas aren't that complicated -- and if they are, it means a lawyer is billing by the hour to justify that complexity:

One nice aspect of this is the number of families that were present -- mothers, fathers, kids.  

This mother isn't going to let anyone endanger her children or her constitutional freedoms:

Even more pleasing was the number of really quite attractive young ladies that were present.  I'm happily married, but I had a friend many years who was arrested at an antiwar demonstration not because he opposed the Vietnam War, but because that was where all the really hot chicks were.  It's a silly way to enlarge our numbers, but it works, and the media can't tell who is there for the cause, and who is there for the hot chicks!

Some were dressed and armed for immediate revolutionary activity:

Others looked like they might be ready to strike the first blow for the revolution with the fashion police:

What?  Not camo heels?

Not what you expected to show up at a pro-gun rally?  Leave your prejudices behind!

As is usually the case with right-wing events here in Idaho, it was more racially diverse than our institutions of higher education, with black, Hispanic, and Asians present.  One mildly surprising combination was this family: two black kids, obviously adopted by a white couple:

I am generally not keen on open carry, but at an event like this, it wasn't terribly shocking or startling -- even the Snake River Alliance did not seem particularly freaked by a collection of "assault weapons" that should, if some are to be believed, have led to at least 20,000 deaths before the event was over: