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...fact that protesters at President Obama's political events have begun showing up bearing arms may be disquieting, but it's perfectly legal - and the Secret Service, charged with protecting the President, insists that it is not unduly alarmed by the development. That's because while the Second Amendment guarantees Americans the right to carry guns, federal law also gives the Secret Service the right to keep gun-toting folks away from the President. (See pictures of gun culture...
...These individuals were not ticketed for the events and were not waiting to go inside," says Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan. "They weren't in positions outside the events that we considered a threat to the event in any way." The Secret Service generally has three layers of protection around the President: an inner circle of agents just steps away; a secure building or arena in which the President is appearing, with restricted admission, metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs; and finally, an outer perimeter with checkpoints. (See the top 10 Secret Service code names...
...former Secret Service agent Joseph Petro thinks his former employer may be trying to put the best face on a bad situation. "The Secret Service is very concerned about this," says Petro, who spent 23 years as an agent, including four guarding President Reagan and his family. "It's hard enough to protect the President, and this is not helpful." He pauses. "We are not a Third World country." (Read "A Brief History of the Secret Service...
While protesters in certain states may have the right to carry weapons to spots near presidential visits - and the Secret Service may blanket the President with protection - Petro says the guns' presence changes the atmosphere surrounding such events. "They're intimidating people like it's a western saloon," he says. And the weapons could turn a verbal clash between demonstrators into a shoot-out. "In a heated atmosphere," Petro argues, "it's a recipe for disaster." Most critical, according to Petro, author of Standing Next to History: An Agent's Life Inside the Secret Service, is the message the guns...
Both Arizona and New Hampshire are "open-carry" states in which it is legal to carry visible weapons in public. But every gun-bearing protester requires the attention of the Secret Service and the local and state police who reinforce their efforts. "If the local police are drawn away to deal with these fools, then there's a vacuum somewhere," Petro says. "Perhaps one of those cops was supposed to be in a critical place where he or she could have stopped someone from doing something to the President. That's a real problem...