Which is more threatening at a political rally? A gun or a derogatory t-shirt?

"America, Land of the Free" seems to have entirely different connotations for different people and some civil rights seem more important than others. Take the constutional rights we all have for example: is the right to bear arms really more important than freedom of speech?

Recently, a gentleman brought a gun to a rally for Barack Obama. Having a gun at a location with the President of the United States seems not to be the best idea. Was he arrested or apprehended? Nope, not at all. It is legal to do so if the weapon is in the open.

Flashback to 2004 at a Texas event for George W. Bush, everybody's favorite president and definitely the biggest war-mongering leader of the western world,

"Police placed Nicole and Jeffery Rank of Corpus Christi in restraints after they entered the event with a ticket and then removed their clothes to reveal anti-Bush T-shirts, according to the acting director of the Capitol police in Charleston."

Oh no! Anti-Bush t-shirts. It must have terrified the Texas establishment that two people in the Lonestar state could still have the ability to possibly think for themselves and have a different opinion than everyone around them. "Restraints" for wearing t-shirts. This was not a high school event with a strict dress-code policy. This did not take place in a country with an established dictatorship. This was in the very same country that very same president touted for being free.

Hmmm, let me think about the differences here. Gun v. T-Shirt. It is said that the pen is mightier than the sword, but I believe that guns might possibly be mightier in certain instances. What the hell is wrong with this country? I am tired of the double-speak and hypocrisy here. The fear and hate that is being spread across the rural states has more to do with Republican party's particular method of control than anything else.

I am fine with people not liking Barack Obama, but I am not ok with white supremacists calling a black man a Nazi. I am fine with people who are peacefully protesting health care reform, but I am not ok with people bringing guns to rallies and encouraging the assassination of the President of the United States.

According to the Huffington Post, the quote the man wore at the rally was "This is the same exact quote Tim McVeigh was referencing in a shirt he wore... before bombing the Oklahoma City federal building." The implication is clear. The shirt alone would not have been so disturbing, but the t-shirt worn with a gun has another meaning entirely.